The Wanderer's Tale (38 page)

Lining their route, more people had gathered to watch the newcomers, for word had already spread fast. Noisy children scuttled along the shackleboards, grinning and pointing at the wherryman and his charges. Some threw sticks and stones, screeching in wild, uncontrollable excitement. They looked the sort of kids who might live in the worst part of town, the low-rent housing zones where every hovel seems to have a broken-down cart parked outside, supported on stacks of bricks and with its wheels removed.

Paulus eyed them intently and began sharpening his blade.

They passed under an arch and approached a wide docking area. One of the broader walkways appeared to serve as the main jetty, and it was towards this that the giant now punted them. A larger crowd had gathered here to have a gander at these outlandish foreigners who had come amongst them, but unlike the previous gawpers who had kept their distance, these ones physically blocked their way.

The Gjoeger, however, was apparently treated with a considerable amount of reverence, for a loud bellow and a wave of his pole soon dispersed the crowd sufficiently to enable his passengers to finally climb up onto the jetty. A plank was brought out by the wharfinger specially for Zhang, who nimbly trotted up it to stand with his companions.

‘Well,’ announced Nibulus cheerfully, but with a slightly mocking undertone, ‘Myst-Hakel.’

The others nodded uncertainly.

‘Hot bath, huge steaming meal, then a dry place to kip for the night,’ Nibulus promised to his men – as if they needed this encouragement – and stretched his big arms wide. ‘Come on, lads, let’s find an inn.’

He handed the swamp giant a golden zlat for his services, then, with one last look at their taciturn boatman, gave a wave and set off into town. The others followed their buoyant leader as he marched off along one of the wider platforms, apparently oblivious to the large throng he was striding through. The half-rotted boards creaked alarmingly as he went, but this did not seem to bother him. Finwald followed him closely, wrapping himself up in his black cloak and pulling his wide-brimmed hat low over his eyes. Wodeman came next, staring around at their spectators in open curiosity. Then Appa, blowing mucus from his nostrils with his pinched fingers, Paulus with bastard-sword held at the ready, and finally Bolldhe, leading his horse noisily over the sagging planking.

Sometimes they would have to step aside, dangerously close to the edge, as surly fishermen lumbered by. Past gangs of sag-jawed net-menders they went, too, who would uniformly stop in their tasks to stare up at them; also gap-toothed old Haug-crones, peering out ignorantly from darkened doorways; packs of insolent brats of indeterminate race, sitting upon barrels of nails, pitch, quicklime and hemp, smoking pipes and making rude gestures at the arrivals; while down below, where the barges were laid out like floating planks, slime-coated Boggarts, waist-deep in water as they caulked the hulls with oakum, risked the wrath of their Polgrim overseers by pausing in their toil to glance up at the strangers above.

All around them was evidence of poverty and decay. Marsh-birds and vermin stalked or scuttled everywhere, gathering in raucous or squeaking melees whenever a bucket of slop was thrown into the filthy water or tipped across the planking. An old man squatted unselfconsciously over the edge of a walkway doing his business onto the children playing in the mud below. A crying puppy was having its eyes pecked at by crows, and at one point Nibulus tripped over a dead, rat-gnawed baby abandoned at the wayside. At least, he
assumed
it was rats that had gnawed it. He stared at it fixedly, until Paulus irritably booted it into the water. No one made any comment.

Mobs of diminutive Polgs could be seen hanging around. They had short, thick black hair, long moustaches and squat legs. Their skin ranged from sallow to light brown, the complexion of leather, and their beady eyes were of the palest grey. Many wore brightly coloured shirts, but mostly their raiment was either deep green, rich earth-brown or night-blue. Most had long knives slung at the waist, some bore spears. None addressed the newcomers.

But there was one person who smiled openly at them. As Bolldhe often noticed, in any crowd of inhospitable, staring locals there is nearly always one who welcomes the stranger in. Usually young, poor, as often as not without a family, and
always
male, they come up to the stranger smilingly and assume the position of guide. Though money is expected, it is rarely asked for, and even the meagrest of sums will buy help, guidance and unswerving loyalty.

Here in Myst-Hakel, Job Ash was that one.

‘Wealh!’ came his shrill voice. ‘Wealh! Need frend, need frend.’

Aware of Bolldhe’s advice, the travellers paused briefly but did not stop. Nibulus called over his shoulder to Bolldhe. ‘One of your parasites, I imagine?’

The wanderer glanced sideways at the approaching boy but did not allow his pace to slow either. ‘Maybe not this one,’ he replied. ‘There’s always one who can be trusted to go along with. What do you reckon, Nibulus? Think we could do with a guide? Could save us time.’

The Peladane slowed a little, and studied directly the boy hurrying down a side walkway towards them. ‘He’s on his own . . . and limping. Could be all right? Yes, I don’t see why not. Hey, boy!’

The lad caught up with them, panting heavily but still smiling. They could not help but notice how one leg dragged behind him, the ankle twisted at an angle. His clothes were, if anything, even drabber and dirtier than his fellow citizens’, but his demeanour lacked their dourness. His hair was a grubby blond matted into several greasy spikes, his flat, squint-eyed face dirt-brown, and the smile he wore so big that the corners of his mouth almost met at the back of his head.

‘Good wealh,’ he trilled at the six men. ‘You frendamyne? Need bedt? Yut? I for you good bedt, good yut. You frendamyne, wealh, yes?’

He shifted his weight nervously as the six tall strangers stared down at him, the boards squeaking under his bare feet.

‘Speaks a little Aescalandian,’ Nibulus observed. ‘Could be useful, that. What’s your name, boy?’

The boy hopped about eagerly. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘I name Job Ash. I helf you something. Nice horse, nice horse. Come me, get bedt. Not from here, you. I guide all wealh.’

‘Wealh? Waylanders, maybe?’ asked Finwald.

‘Dry rooms, clean beds, lots of food, and beer,’ Nibulus asked. ‘You can do?’

Job did not seem to understand a word he was saying, and laughed with a slight hint of desperation in his voice. ‘Yes, yes! Good wealh, cyneherjar. Nice horse. Come me,’ he replied, his eyes continually drawn to the slough-horse.

‘Cyneherjar?’ exclaimed Finwald in an amused tone. ‘That’s a word from the old Polg legends. He thinks we’re royal warriors.’

‘What century’s he living in?’ laughed Nibulus.

‘The same century as this whole town, by the look of it,’ Finwald commented, looking around. ‘Sounds as if they haven’t seen Peladanes, or horses either, around here for many years. Look at the boy and the way he’s eyeing Zhang.’

‘Yes, yes, nice horse,’ Job picked up, glancing at the mage-priest as he shuffled past him to take the lead. ‘You follow. Stroda not helf you, think bad, but I you to house. Yut, bedt. Come, come. Nice horse, too.’

Hesitantly, they allowed themselves to be led. Bolldhe kept a tight hold on Zhang’s reins. ‘If that little bastard gets too fond of “nice horse”,’ he muttered, ‘I’ll see he limps on the other leg too.’

Putting up with their unexpected guide for just as long as it suited them, the company allowed themselves to be led deeper into the town. Job Ash, despite his lameness, limped as sprightly as the best of them along the confusing web of walkways. He guided them through a dingy collection of ramshackle huts until they had all lost any sense of direction. On every side now the huts hemmed them in, and below them was the ever-present threat of the stagnant, oozing water that smelt like one vast latrine. Now and then they might pass over hump-backed bridges that spanned one of the wider channels, and could then see up long lines of huts all perched upon their forest of stilts. One or two of these waterways were little more than sluices of mud, with only the meagrest runnel of water trickling down the middle and maybe a grounded barge listing forlornly to one side.

Dogs backed away at their approach, then growled cravenly as they passed by. All looked flea-ridden and stinking, and scratched despairingly at the hairless, scabby skin that patched their sides, driven mad by whatever itchy condition would doubtless eventually kill them.

Soon they emerged from the suffocating labyrinth of the shanty town, and found themselves upon a broad dyke. This earthwork, probably as old as the inner town itself, ran around the knoll on which it extended. A wide road (wide by Myst-Hakelian standards, at least, meaning three people could stand abreast) ran along the summit of this dyke, and several rickety old bridges, and one large covered bridge, spanned the moat lying between it and the knoll. The ditch itself was a channel of unspeakably abhorrent effluence, a thick black soup interspersed with islands of crust with livid red and green fungi growing on them. Things floated (or, rather,
sat
) in it: dead things, bits of dead things, and things that fed on dead things. There was an audible hum that rose from it which caused the six strangers to head straight for the covered bridge beyond instead of the smaller one Job had led them to.

Once inside the covered bridge they marvelled at just how spacious in extent it was. Stalls and kiosks were set up along either side of the central walkway, just like in a marketplace, and at this time of the evening it was heavily crowded with all sorts of people. The wayfarers had to push their way through a throng of shouting, haggling, sometimes fighting vendors and customers, though they themselves gladly seized the opportunity to avail themselves of some of the produce on sale. There were heaps of every sort of fruit and vegetable imaginable, and many more besides. There were large baskets of cheeping, yellow chickens, and glass tanks containing adult pike that were too big to even turn around. There was an entire menagerie of rodents, reptiles and birds, kept in unbelievably tiny cages and squealing and hissing for all they were worth. And there were stalls that served up highly animated bowls or kebabs of
live
food, also squealing, hissing and shitting for all they were worth. The entire edifice trembled and groaned alarmingly and sometimes even lurched under the weight of so many.

Several silver zlats lighter and loaded with a veritable festoon of provender, the travellers emerged red-faced and sweating from the covered bridge and into the cooler air and relative calm of the ‘upper’ town.

‘Heathen bastards!’ Nibulus exclaimed. ‘I swear if I’d spent a second longer in there I’d have killed someone!’

‘Yes, yes,’ Job assured them as he led them cheerfully up a narrow dirt lane, ‘These Stroda are very bastards. But here good. Stroda not bother you here. Not steal horse.’

‘Stroda?’ asked Nibulus, ‘You mean Polgrim?’

‘No, no, Stroda . . . We! Men of Marsh. Polga no Stroda. Polga new. From East. Trap, get meat, but bad men. Say we beasts!’

Sure enough, the Polgs did appear to wear an air of superiority about them. They hung about lazily and glared at any humans and Haugers who passed near to them. Racially, though, they were similar to the Haugers, roughly the same height and of similar build, and it was said they were distant relatives. But culturally they were worlds apart, for Haugers lived in highly civilized, settled communities, usually located in high places or escarpment villages, and they would rarely travel more than two miles from their homes. Polgs, however, were a barbarian race, nomads who roamed the vast, flat grasslands to the East, hunting the plains herds. They were fleet of foot and said to be unsurpassed amongst all the races of Lindormyn in fortitude and endurance, doing their hunting entirely on foot. Their chiefs might ride upon stags occasionally, and some of their more powerful warlords even rode the dreaded ‘Sailam’ horse, but for the most part it was not their custom to use steeds.

Along with them, the Polgs had brought their slaves, the hairy, degenerate, sub-human Boggarts, whom they kept on leashes. Here, by the outlet of the covered bridge, a series of small treadmills had been set up to turn the spits of roasting game that the Polgs inside were selling, and it was in these that the Boggarts were patiently and uncomplainingly toiling.

Finwald paused a moment to regard them with sympathy. ‘I often get the feeling they know something we don’t,’ he said to Nibulus. ‘Why else would they be so calm under all the ordure we pile on them?’

On encountering any Polg, Bolldhe would return their haughty stare. He was reminded of the Leqather hunter-nomads of the forest-hills of Rynsaker, way back east. Every so often they would come down from their rainy highlands to trade meat and pelts for the iron arrow-tips and farm produce of the settled communities, and would parade down the streets half-naked and proud, as if they owned the place. The settlers detested them, calling them animals behind their backs, but Bolldhe found out that in the Leqather tongue the words for ‘settler’ and ‘cattle’ were one and the same. Such appeared to be the case with these Polgs, and few communities would tolerate them for any length of time. But an already racially mixed town might not be so quick to expel them, and meanwhile they did as they pleased.

On a whim, Bolldhe suddenly decided that he wanted to make closer contact with these locals. He kicked one of the lounging Polgs hard as he passed, then immediately hefted his axe threateningly as the Polg and his companions flared up. Bolldhe loomed over them, looking down from on high, and sneered as they bitterly backed down.

Job Ash led them futher up the narrow earthen lanes of the old town. Here the ground was drier and the air was cleaner. Even houses were larger and built to last, yet the place appeared much more sparsely inhabited.

‘I can’t understand how those people can live down there in all that filth and noise,’ said Appa, ‘when it’s so much more pleasant up here.’