The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (38 page)

       
They heard a huge,
discordant roaring, the crash of buildings being demolished, the rending of
timbers, screams and alarums.

       
"What's happening
now?" said Togura.

       
"If you're so
honey-sniffing curious," said Draven, "go and see for yourself."

       
Togura wasn't tempted.

       
Somewhere in the city, a
fire started; smoke billowed upwards. Men, disorganised, running in panic,
stumbling, falling, pushing each other, came hustling out of the streets and
onto the quayside. They began swarming onto the ships. On Togura's ship, nobody
was giving orders; the captain was not in evidence.

       
"Well," said
Draven. "So much for all that octopus-talk" - he meant hype -
"about conquering the world. We've lost."

       
"Lost what?"

       
"The battle. The
war."

       
"Which war?"

       
"The one we're
fighting in, little loon," said Draven. "Hell's blood! Where's the
captain?"

       
"What do you want
him for?"

       
"So I can bugger
his boots with a jack-knife! Wat the hell do you think I want him for? So we
can get the ship the hell out of here, that's what for."

       
"I think," said
Togura, "you'd better take charge yourself."

       
"This isn't my
ship," said Draven. Then, looking around at the scrummage on deck:
"On the other hand - maybe you've got a point."

       
And Draven started
roaring out orders.

       
"Avast there, salts
and gobblers!" screamed Draven. "Listen for your lives! Brazen the
spazjits! Lubber the lee! Untrice the hawsers!" Nobody paid any attention.
"Come on, you rat-scum whore-rapists! Drop the scurfs in the brine! Get
the plugs run-hauled!"

       
It was useless.

       
"Draven," said
Togura, urgently. "Grab that man there. The big one, with the dragon
tattoo. Talk him into your crew."

       
"Oh knot off,"
said Draven, pushing him away. Then, to the milling mob: "Plug up your
gobs, you mouse-cocked chicken-shaggers! Hear out my orders!"

       
While Draven screamed
himelf hoarse to no avail, Togura spoke to the dragon-tattoo man with an
eloquence inspired by fear of death. Triumphant, he led his recruit back to Draven.

       
"Captain
Draven," said the man, giving a clenched-fist salute. "I'm Ratbite
Jakes, at your service."

       
"Good man!"
said Draven, slapping him on the shoulder. Then, seeing Togura's strategy, and
seeing now that it would work, he adopted it as his own. "Jakes," he
said, pointing. "Grab that fellow over there! The one with the red hair!
We need him!"

       
On the quayside, a
battle royal was raging. No enemy was yet in sight, but men were fighting each
other to get aboard the ships. Something in the city was roaring - it sounded
like a huge animal. There was a cacophony of wreckage and rupture. It sounded
as if all hell was marching toward them.

       
Draven, having gathered
up half a dozen big, husky, capable-looking men, spoke to them swiftly, giving
his orders. Then they dispersed, shouting their orders, press-ganging men as
they went. Togura, Jakes and Draven, a three-man hunting pack, began to recruit
a second echelon of group leaders.

       
Soon, Togura was getting
control.

       
Half a dozen rowing
boats were pirated from the harbourside. They began to lug the ship toward the
harbour mouth. Togura, still sick and dizzy, got booted upstairs, and found
himself in the rigging, floundering amidst the canvas.

       
The ship was slow, slow,
slow to move.

   
    
"Hell's
grief!" said a man, in shocked disbelief.

       
"What?" said
Togura, trying to steady himself in the rigging and tie knots at the same time.

       
"Look!"

       
Togura looked.

       
A rock was smashing its
way out through the harbourside buildings. Roaring, it charged. Men ran,
screaming. The rock crunched into them, corpsing them, pulping their bodies to
strawberry jam. Togura, stunned, sickened, appalled, almost fainted and fell.

       
"Steady
yourself!" said his comrade, grabbing him with a most welcome supporting
hand.

       
The rock smashed its way
to the quayside and charged their ship. It crashed into the gat between the
ship and the sea, plunged down to the water, screamed, and was drowned down
under. Draven, on the deck below Togura, shouted at the oarsmen to haul harder.

       
Togura closed his eyes.

       
He shuddered.

       
Togura had once had a
clash with a walking rock in Looming Forest, north of Lorford, but had later
dismised the whole incident as a hallucination. But it seemed walking rocks
were real! Hell's grief, indeed!

       
"Work on,"
said his comrade, shaking him.

       
"Yes," said
Togura. "Yes."

       
The rowing boats lugged
them clear of the harbour mouth. The wash of an outgoing river helped push them
west, into the Central Ocean. As men did battle on the quayside with invading
rocks and soldiers, other ships cleared the harbour.

       
Draven's ship picked up
its rowing-boat men and began to sail with all canvas set. Five ships got free
from the harbour. Togura clambered down to the deck, sweating, exhausted, his
arms and legs quivering. His recent illness had left him weak as a butter-doll.

       
"Hello,
Forester," said a friendly voice.

       
Togura turned, and found
himself looking at a fair-haired young pirate with a raw straw beard.

       
"Who are you?"
said Togura, sure he had never set eyes on the fellow before in his life.

       
"Come now! You
remember me!"

       
"From where?"
said Togura.

       
"From the time we
were married, lover. No, jokes aside - I'm your old shipmate Drake. What's with
the cuttlefish head?"

       
"Cuttlefish?"
said Togura, bewildered. "What kind of fish is that?"

       
"No kind of fish at
all," said the pirate Drake.

       
It was, in fact, a type
of cephalopod, and "cuttlefish head" was, in pirate argot, a term for
amnesia.

       
Togura found his legs
folding up under him. He folded up after them. Shadows danced in front of his
eyes like demented mosquitoes.

       
"If you don't
remember me," said Drake, sitting down beside him, "I suppose it's
the beard that's to blame. I didn't have it last time we met. Aboard the
Warwolf, remember? Jon Arabin's ship. We lost you in the Penvash Channel, near
the island of Drum."

       
"Oh," said
Togura.

       
"Not very
talkative, are we?" said Drake. "Got a hangover, have we? Better pull
ourselves together, I think. We might have fighting soon."

       
"How so?"

       
"Look back to the
harbour, man."

       
Togura looked, and saw another
ship setting out to sea.

       
"So some more of us
have got away," he said.

       
"That's not
ours!" said Drake. "That's enemy!"

       
"How can you
tell?"

       
"The sails, man,
the sails! That gap-tooted raggage was never set by pirates! There's landsmen
aboard that ship. In pursuit of us, my friend. Lusting for our eyeballs. Hearty
for our gizzards. They'll cuttle us down and under, unless we're careful."

       
"Yes, well,"
said Togura. "Tell us when it's fighting time. I'm going to sleep."

       
He snoozed for a while.
When he woke, eight enemy ships were in pursuit.

       
"Eight against
five," said Togura.

       
"As odds go,"
said Drake, "it's not exactly picnic time. But never fear - I think we're
hauling away on them. Griefs, they're still having trouble getting their canvas
up!"

       
"Tell me if
anything changes," said Togura.

       
And closed his eyes.

       
The sun was warm, the
motion of the ship was easy, and he was very, very tired. He drifted off to
sleep again, and was soon dreaming confused dreams in which blue-green sea
serpents tangled their way through piles of chicken feathers which were
swarming with baby turtles. In his dream, he found his way into a woman's
thighs, and was just about to apologise when she clouted him on the head.

       
He woke.

       
"What?" he
cried, dazed by a mix of sleep and sunlight.

       
The ship lurched.

       
Something smashed into
the vessel with a blow which was felt from keel to masthead.

       
"Sea serpents!"
screamed Togura.

       
"No, whales!"
shouted someone, looking overboard.

       
And whales they were.
Big ones. Sperm whales, each more than twenty paces long. Water-surging
cetacean wrath, charging the ship and battering it.

       
"Let's find
ourselves a swim," said Drake.

       
"A swim?"

       
"Something to float
us," said Drake.

       
The ship, struck again,
staggered, listed. It was holed. It was sinking. Togura was knocked to the
ground as men brawled for possession of a choice "swim," a
well-founded barrel. He lost sight of Drake.

       
The deck canted. The
seas surged up. Togura staggered upright. Water boiled around him. He struck
out, trying to swim, lest the descending rigging snag him and drown him under.
Clearing the ship, he floundered round, turning in the water. He caught a
glimpse of fully-rigged masts and canvas plunging under.

       
The water was cold and
turbulent. The waves smashed down the screams of drowning men. The blue sky
billowed above. Everywhere, pirates were going under. With a shock, Togura
realised that hardly any of them could swim.

       
Then, with a greater
shock, he realised that another ship was sinking. And a third was in trouble.
Big trouble. As he watched, it suddenly turned turtle and plunged down out of
sight, quick as gasping.

       
Another ship was riding
through the waves toward him, closing the distance steadily. It looked as if it
would ride him down. He saw men busy at its deckrail. Boarding nets were being
lowered. Big, slow and stately, the ship ploughed through the seas toward him.
he could make out its figurehead: a grene-haired girl with three breasts and
five nipples.

       
Closer still it came,
till he could see the name of the ship painted on its bow. He could see it, but
he could not read it; it was scripted in arcane foreign ideograms he had never
seen before in his life. Looking up, he saw the canvas being furled: the ship
was losing headway.

       
"Swim, boy!"
shouted someone.

       
It was Draven,
floundering toward the ship.

       
"Come on,
Forester!" yelled another voice. "Don't just float around wallowing!
You're not in the bath, you know!"

       
That was Drake.

       
Togura struck out for
the ship. As it yawed, he saw the black tar of its undersides. It plunged down
again, rolling toward him. He grabbed the though hemp of the boarding net.

       
"Climb, you lazy
whoreson dog!" shouted Draven, already half way to the deckrail.

       
But Togura could not. He
clung there, shivering, exhausted. Someone climbed down to him. It was Drake.
Who grabbed his hair.

       
"Up," said
Drake, yanking.