Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (14 page)

If all went
well, they would be out of this bull pen before any other calamity
could strike. So Baus mused . . .

IV

That night, as
on the previous, Baus’s thoughts were morose. They drifted into
dreams in which his experience was visions of human-demon conflict.
Driven on an unknown mission, he was compelled to battle some
misanthropic forces, somewhat human-formed, with only a small
dagger and his wits to protect himself. Under the glowering moon he
fought a monstrous bird with man-like qualities and glowing eyes
and unearthly limbs. A wide, black river flowed nearby with ominous
stealth. Far over the forests mushroom-shaped towers abounded;
farther still, the mouldering stone ruins of bygone ages. He felt
his knees fall limp, his own desires well up within him: secret
longings, impulses, passions, all dangling in his face like worms
skewered on a hook. Weaknesses, banes—all his foibles—they were
bared with purpose, all to undermine him. A dark presence hovered
near his throat: something immutably dim, but all too real. The
bite of knowingness gnawed at his being with cuts far worse than
any blade or poison. He awoke, flushed with a cold sweat. He raked
unhappily at his damp hair.

He was sitting
erect on his bed—back at the barracks, chest heaving like a
bellows. Pale silver moonlight crept in through the small windows
like fairy breath. Weavil’s regular exhalation played on his
shoulder; the prisoners’ muffled snores became palpable.

A sudden
glimpse alerted him to a roving shape hunched peculiarly by the
door.

He blinked,
bared his teeth. What, another dream?

No! It was the
black-robed Nuzbek hovering over Dighcan’s snoring form with
prejudice.

Baus leaned
forward. He watched as Nuzbek flicked a thin baton out the barred
window.

Baus rejected
the scene before him. For a moment, he saw Germakk stiffen as if in
stunned wonder. Then nothing.

Moments
passed; the sentry made no movement. Baus watched in fascination as
Nuzbek drew back from the window and began fiddling with the lock.
The magician prodded the door open; he stepped past Germakk and out
into the chillness of the night. He inclined his head in an
arrogant way. Halting in a place behind the guard, he watched the
watchman’s stony, inflexible stance with a kind of malign
satisfaction.

Germakk stood
like a leaden effigy, snapperwhip held in midair, as if defying the
laws of gravity.

Baus drew a
confused breath. Bold of Nuzbek to attempt such a manoeuvre!

Baus extended
his caution so as not to rouse Weavil or Karlil and he slipped out
from under his blanket and stole around the bunk toward the door.
Crouching at the threshold, he witnessed Nuzbek make a grand way
past the guard and onto the Flanks’ playing ground.

Soft lantern
light spilled over the portcullis. The glistening bars were a
stone’s throw from where he crouched. The magician craned his neck,
gazed up to the watchtower. He seemed comforted to spy Ausse dozing
off on his stool; his back was set against a corner in a most
indolent pose.

Nuzbek made a
hurried dash across the moonlit turf. Ausse was looking elsewhere.
He stood blinking in the blue black shadow of the watchtower,
muttering deprecations while he began playing glove puppet tricks
with his fingers in the shadows. Suddenly Germakk’s chin began to
bob, sagging in slumber.

Without
warning, the lookout was benumbed. Baus stepped back in awe. Nuzbek
disappeared into the shadows. The darkened interiors of the office
remained quiet.

Puzzled by the
act, Baus padded earnestly to Germakk’s inert form and edged his
way by the barracks’ shadowed side. He crouched there like a
lurking animal, waiting for something to happen. The indigo shadows
continued to cast their bleak hues across the turf.

Moments later,
Nuzbek emerged carrying two cylindrical objects in his arms. The
objects were queer—the same canisters that he had so cordially
coveted, conveyed to the yard by the constabulary.

Cargo secured,
the magician stole his way back toward the barracks. As he passed,
Baus plunged himself deeper in the shadows, and Nuzbek was so
engrossed with his prizes that he failed to notice the tense form
of Baus peering up at him like a snogmald; he continued toward the
northern wall and Baus crept after him like a wraith, keeping
hidden under the wallside shadows.

From a few
stones’ throw distance, Baus watched Nuzbek kneel before the north
wall, snatch up a dead chunk of beobar. The magician committed
himself to a furious digging upon the loose sandy soil.

Brief minutes
passed; Nuzbek carefully dumped his jars in the pit and speedily
covered them up. For a moment Baus’s perplexity reached an
apex.

Nuzbek
scuttled back to the office to retrieve the last two of his
trophies. Pausing on the way back to deliver Germakk another
glancing blow with the ganglestick, he began digging again by the
north wall: two similar holes where the last two jars were buried .
. . here Nuzbek seemed troubled, in a manner which Baus could not
readily define . . . fury? disdain? indecision?

Perhaps the
sight of the encaged midgets evoked rancorous memories? . . . Baus
rubbed his jaw in bewilderment.

His suspicion
turned to doubt. He tried to imagine what use the jars would be to
Nuzbek underground, but certainly it was for some sinister purpose.
Obviously he coveted these jars; but why? Why bury them here when
he could not escape?

Baus arrested
the speculations. Nuzbek had completed his camouflaging and with a
demure satisfaction, began retracing his steps back toward the
barracks.

Baus was eager
to be back himself. It was the height of careless impudence to
loiter here while Nuzbek snuggled himself in bed. Fashioning hasty
steps, Baus ducked under the shadows and scampered alongside the
west wall. He gained the veranda, slipped by the immobile Germakk,
and there he lay on his pallet feigning sleep.

Nuzbek no
sooner had arrived than he calmly inspected the guard. He was in no
great hurry and the magician wedged himself between Nolpin and
Yullen while Baus watched with leery satisfaction. The magician
tucked his baton neatly into a slit under his pillow. Squinting
through hooded lids, Baus noted the hiding place.

Minutes later,
Germakk chanced to sneeze. By force, the momentum dissipated the
magic and snapped him into alertness. The guard seemed confused,
disoriented, not completely his self, and he marched smartly up to
the door. He thrust his face in between the bars, peering down upon
the sleeping crew. His attitude was of suspicion. He seemed barely
convinced that everything was as it should, yet he resumed his
post, griping and grabbing whip and dagger and muttering
curses.

Nuzbek shifted
his position to better enjoy Germakk’s befuddlement. Baus’s mental
functionings worked overtime. What skullduggery was Nuzbek up to?
The power of the rod seemed miraculous, that it could freeze one
indiscriminately. Apparently Nuzbek seemed to enjoy this kind of
private joke; and yet, many of the inexplicable degradations cast
upon Dighcan and Zestes became less ambiguous . . .

Baus directed
himself to deeper musing. He ventured on speculations of marvel
regarding the ganglestick. If a single prod could render a man
incapacitated for several minutes, what vast potentialities might
it have in his own palm?

The prospect
was exhilarating.

* * *

The first
glimmer of light patterned the dormitory floor with rich red and
mahogany tones. Baus struggled awake to the sounds of groans,
grunts and ill-mannered jests. Dighcan eased himself out of his
bed, stooping as he did to habitually lace his battered workboots.
He stared sleepily out and about and mumbled to himself about
having to face another day, only a paltry six more years left in
his sentence. He backslapped Lopze, a dazed and confused
badger-creature, whose bleary raccoon eyes looked as if they hadn’t
slept a wink all night. Valere rolled himself over, grimacing,
voicing a rude remark at Yullen, who had nestled himself into the
crook of his neck, purring like an infant at his mother’s breast.
“Away, you foul-breathed hound!”

On his way to
the latrine, Vibellhanz accidentally jostled Paltuik, framing a
careless retort that earned him a buffet and a knife-draw. Paltuik
lumbered over to converse with Karlil, who was himself on his way
to the latrine and Tustok eased past and innocently belched in
Quintlo’s face without apologizing. Upon scenting the reek of last
night’s oilfish, Quintlo emitted a vile curse, at which point
Tustok mumbled a belaboured objection. Nuzbek stood back by the
window, with his rumpled hat in hand and was so engrossed in
smoothing back his thinning hair, that when Leamoine sidled up and
fondled his behind, he gave a sharp cry and whirled on him like a
crane.

“Pay close
attention, milkfingers! It is eight demerits to impose
improprieties upon a fellow convict. Remember Graves’ warnings?—or
do I have to imprint it on your brow? Do you desire so badly the
flap-trap?”

“No more than
you,
Nuzbeka
,” Leamoine purred, waving a delicate hand at
him, “but, if no one tells, no one knows.”

“Wrong!”
railed Nuzbek. “If no one reports, no one is brave enough to
initiate the act. I have tongue enough and I am brave, as are
Zestes and Tustok here, who will vouch for my testimony.”

Leamoine
dimpled his cheeks with coquettishness. “They will surely not say a
peep.”

Nuzbek jerked
forward to object but Leamoine began to fuss placidly with his
right ear bangle. “Attend! As no witnesses are stepping forth,
logic deems necessarily no complaint, therefore no demerits, no
immurement in the flap-trap.”

“Blind
sophism!” cried Nuzbek. “Mark my words, you are walking on
eggshells.”

Leamoine gave
a fluting cluck as did many convicts raise jeering outcries which
Nuzbek found entirely low-class. He strode back to his bunk and
discharged his angst upon Boulm, who was just rousing himself from
his pallet.

* * *

After a cold
unsatisfying breakfast of onion, hoarfish, and yams, Ausse and
Germakk assigned the men to their day’s duties. The dodgy meal went
down heavily. It was Baus, Tustok, Valere, Quintlo, Zorez and
Vibellhanz who were to report to the sea wall, while Weavil,
Nuzbek, Nolpin, Boulm and others were consigned to various chores,
including clam-shucking, fish-gutting and refuse-shovelling in the
central yard. The wastes were to be loaded into barrows and dumped
in the garbage pit at the forest’s edge.

Baus fumed
silently. As much as he despised this odious task of clam-cracking
and its associated stenches, he secretly wished he was the one
involved so that he could secretly scour the north wall and
overhanging limbs for any possibilities of escape.

Oppet, Master
of the snauzzerhounds, presently pulled at the chains of his dogs
and drove Baus and the four convicts on, ball and chain clutched in
hand, down the narrow pathway through Grumboar forest. The dogs
were feral monsters, snapping at the prisoners’ heels with
slavering jowls. Six foot long masses of furred stealth, spiked
ears and peaked snouts stabbed at the earth and made a formidable
impression on the convicts. Oppet kept the guardians at bay,
voicing several commands while tendering herbal sweetmeats which
seemed to pacify the beasts in some way. Nevertheless, the dogs
seemed to adore their master and obeyed him without question. They
truckled to his requests with an almost religious devotion despite
the intricate harness rigged up round their necks and torsos.

Although the
journey through the woods was arduous, Baus had time to marvel at
the great smoke-coloured boughs that vaulted over their heads. They
were like magnificent rooftops reaching to the sky. Green-backed
boles as old as time hemmed his path, through the gaps of which,
Baus caught glimpses of salt-water pools, fallen logs, bull reeds
and bog tracts which hid the wide-billed herons that stalked fish
and frogs. Bristly weeds, spiky crag-bush coloured the rich and
hundred-hued morass. All the time Baus heard faint murmuring amidst
the trees: the sweet musk of old forest masked the oily exudations
of fen, overshadowing its eeriness, but still remained a teasing
reminder of the days when his father would entertain him as a lad
with tales of the ‘murmuring’ forests of seaside Sarch. Too short
were these carefree days that came back now . . .

Out of the
shadows the company emerged, struggling alongside the mudflats
toward Weavil’s lookout, now a forlorn, black-blemished shanty shot
against the folds of the sea. A short distance ahead, the
half-finished teeth of the sea wall rose out of the sand like
molars. Up to the wharf the rampart continued like a stony snake,
continuing along the northern shore of the Flam.

A
black-bearded figure greeted them with enthusiasm—Voin, who
conveyed them with somewhat perfunctory authority down a
shallow-bowled dune toward a section of wall that denoted the
straggling terminus. There stood three piles of raw stone, a
wheelbarrow and a beat-up bucket of cement powder. A grey tub of
water was pushed back amongst the shovels and trowels.

The foreman
rubbed his wrists, an officious fellow infused with a florid face
and hawk features. He uttered curt instructions to the crew,
whereupon trowels were thrust into Baus’s and Vibellhanz’s hands.
Zorez and Quintlo were commanded to work the wheelbarrow and gather
shells to add to the mortar. Tustok and Valere were handed shovels
while Oppet went back with his dogs to tend the prison gate.

Trowel in
hand, Baus caught a glimpse of the limitless Poesasian. It was
lustreless, trembling in the damp, salty air like some untamed
maiden. Today it was grey and bleak with the shadow of incoming
clouds. The shoreline was dim, a flat and hazy swath—forming a
languid blur with the waves that licked its face. A muted drone,
merging with the nearby soporific creak of ships’ rigging, set Baus
to wistful reflection. The steeples of schooners of Heagram port
felt somehow faraway, no more to Baus a home than a vague memory of
the past. The seaside hamlet was lost to him. He felt no more
attachment to Heagram than a wayfarer committing a fleeting
stopover along the path of a long journey. What was more, outside
of the sanctuary of his own mind, he fostered no hope of escape
from this wretched prison. While remaining prepossessed with the
murk of despair, he was jolted by Voin, who had noticed his break
of industry.