Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (21 page)

Mulfax shook
his head with stubborn disbelief. “I know what I saw! Wizardry
walks rife amongst us in tall shadows!”

“Impossible!”

Nolpin made a
keen observation. “Nuzbek tried to warn you. Now look at the evil
you have stirred upon yourself. Hauntings and phantasms.”

“Shut up, you
cock-eyed loon.” Skarrow slashed a stinging lash on Nolpin’s
throat.

Nolpin cried
out in pain.

Zestes, who
feared none of the guards or their whips, put a hand of panic to
his mouth. “Oh, Mulfy, please don’t hurt us. Protect us from the
big bad spirits who come to tickle us in the night!”

A ruckus of
laughter broke out amongst the convicts, which bordered on
prompting a riot.

“Shut up, you
gibbering mugs!” fumed Mulfax. “On the morrow there’ll be a severe
accounting. Oh yes, a merry one! There’s a full day’s work on the
Brimhaven road, which I know shall occur in the rain.” He gave a
satisfied leer. “The wind gathers, the stormclouds brew, so enjoy
your little game while you can.” He turned angrily on his heel.
“Come, Skarrow!” The lockless door slammed shut and Mulfax resumed
his post.

Baus heard a
battery of muttered curses without. The retreating tramp of
Skarrow’s boots seemed pitched in weary disgust. Baus pulled the
mildewy blanket over his head. He breathed a sigh of strangled
relief. All could have gone terribly awry, but lady fortune had
shone. Fortune had not been so kind to Trimestrius. The little
prince had failed miserably to undermine his sense of cunning—and
Baus’s smile became wistful as he felt the prince’s new gladius
press warmly against his thigh.

VIII

True to
Mulfax’s words, rain came hard that morning: a dull downpour that
promised not to abate for days. Under the supervision of Mulfax,
Voin and Skarrow, the bedraggled company trundled toward Brimhaven
by wagons two leagues down the potholed inland road. The men were
issued chisels, hammers, mattocks and rakes and chipped at the
twelve boulders lying in the ditch that were quarried from the
seaside bluffs. Another team, leg-shackled with ball and chain,
gathered road-ready chips into barrows and spread them on the muddy
track. The remaining convicts were enjoined to smooth out the road,
so that water could drain from the side.

Baus was a
member of this raking team. Significant hours of labour passed as
he paused from his task only to peer wearily up into the rain. The
umber-stained fields disappeared into a cobwebbed wash of forest;
the road wound raggedly away into the distance. The sea spread to
the east, barely a lime-blue mist.

As the day
dragged onwards, cool rain thudded hard into the evening; Flanks
was cancelled for the night. The men huddled disconsolately around
a lamplit table in the dormitory, trading miseries while the rain
continued to drum morosely on the tin roof. Baus lay slouched in
his pallet, pensive and withdrawn; nor was Weavil inclined to
participate in any gaming. Half-bantering murmurs were all to be
heard. Baus was concerned about how he was to escape before Nuzbek
returned from the hive. Trimestrius’s gladius had been secured—an
instrument whose cutting power was something of marvel, but the
risk of using it against the guards outweighed any reward. With a
sense of moody anguish, Baus abandoned any schemes related to
unearthing the jars and dredging out more magic items.

Baus humoured
himself knowing that he had escaped the little prince’s fate. Under
no circumstances must he fall prey to such vicissitude as had the
heir to Desenion . . .

Baus’s reverie
was interrupted by shouts coming from the beehive. The prisoners
swarmed over to the window. They saw lambent flashes, flickers and
glows—it seemed a remarkable battle was transpiring in the hive. As
to who was winning, it was difficult to determine, though someone
had gained an advantage—or more specifically—a hold on the glow
pyramid.

* * *

The following
morn proceeded in fashion much similar to the last. Skarrow tramped
to the hive to liberate Dighcan and Nuzbek, after which, the
recently-released convicts joined the road gang like the others.
The inmates reacted to the rain in predictable fashion; Dighcan and
Nuzbek remained uncommunicative; neither was in the mood to offer
anecdotes or witty memoirs about their incarceration; nor did
anyone ply them for details. Dighcan seemed more taciturn, with his
head a degree larger and redder, even rounder, to Baus’s memory,
while Nuzbek seemed more pasty-faced and gaunt, guarding a
near-blackened eye and bruises everywhere that were not
unnoticeable. Dighcan had never achieved complete success in taming
his cellmate’s glow-pyramid antics . . .

Drizzle
accompanied the workers on their extended labours. Graves surprised
all by riding in on his pointy-horned wegmor to oversee the
operation. The warden’s primary purpose was to stimulate the
prisoners to maximum effect; secondly, to debrief Dighcan and
Nuzbek about their return to the yard.

That same
afternoon, Nuzbek and Nolpin proved to be poor flake-haulers and
were demoted to rake-duty alongside Baus. Nuzbek remained cool and
discourteous, particularly when Baus queried him about the ferocity
with which Dighcan had upbraided him a few days ago. “Imagine
Dighcan grousing about butt-fondling,” chirped Baus. “He thought
that you would grope his behind—what a concept! What could have
come over the brute to think such an absurdity?”

Nuzbek made no
effort to craft a civil reply. “Dighcan is that name which is
applied to ‘lout’ and ‘boor’ interchangeably.”

Baus uttered
an aspirated mutter. “Let us not disparage poor Dighcan. He has
sharp ears.”

Nuzbek ignored
the advice. He pulled abstractedly at his sopping beard. “This
whole scenario reeks of some peculiar double-crossing, as if
treacherous forces were working behind my back.”

Baus’s eyes
grew large. “Skullduggery could never be at play in the yard!”

“One would
think not,” muttered Nuzbek.

Baus
scrutinized the magician. His rake-thin face and his spidery scowl
were not becoming. He tried to imagine Nuzbek as being the
indomitable ‘Aurimag’—the neomancer whom Trimestrius kept
vilifying, but for the life of him he could not absorb the concept.
He proposed an experiment and faked a cough and uttered the word
‘Aurimag’ under his breath.

Nuzbek twisted
about with surprising speed. “What was that?” he barked.

Baus’s
expression became ingenuous. “Nothing. I was just in the process of
clearing my throat.”

The magician’s
eyes glimmered bloodshot menace. “You uttered a name—what was
it?”

Baus gave his
head a fretful shake. “I think you have been imagining things. Is
it odd that a man coughs while gripped in the crux of fever in
these chill rains? You are a tiresome fellow!”

Nuzbek’s lips
peeled back to reveal a wolfish grin. “Watch your remarks,
comrade.” Rainwater had seeped through the gaps in his teeth and
had made him look like a ghoul. “I thought that I had heard
something I hadn’t for years. Also, I thought that I had
established myself as a man of serious nature.” He reached
meaningfully in his cloak as if to retrieve an object—possibly the
glow pyramid.

A barrow came
teetering out of the drizzle and nearly sideswiped the magician.
Baus pulled him out of the way just as the barrow passed. “Careful,
Nuzbek. I seem to have saved you from a spill.”

With cold
dislike, Nuzbek shook off Baus’s hand and tottered over to the
roadside.

“Mind! Jorkoff
is a bear when it comes to stone-dumping!” called Baus.

Nuzbek
struggled with his ball and chain. He was like a bedraggled bird
and continued to cast Baus an evil glare.

Baus hoisted
his own weight and moved off to tend to other work on the opposite
shoulder of the road.

Reviewing his
findings, Baus found no answers. His intuition was tingling—far
better to avoid the magician. The notion that he was ‘Aurimag the
enchanter’ was an imprint too sinister to fluff off. Under the
black-billowy robe, this Nuzbek had stashed certain objects,
including the glow pyramid—an adjunct whose puissances and dark
emanations were of formidable potency. Even at a conservative
guess, Baus thought the accessory contained a nexus of elder magic
that caused pain and woe. Nuzbek, or whoever he was, would likely
not risk jeopardizing the use of his fey power in broad
daylight—but then again, who knew what the evil man was capable of
. . .

* * *

What the
prisoners did not know was that Graves had personally arranged a
surprise that evening. The conflicting reports that the Captain had
heard from Skarrow and Mulfax regarding the disturbances of the
night had made him all the more suspicious. Mischief was afoot in
the yard, that much he knew.

Nuzbek awoke
fumbling with his pillow, discovering, to his dismay, that the
absence of his ganglestick was real, that his prized talisman was
filched, furthermore, a rummaging which roused both Baus and
Weavil.

The two,
peering shrewdly out of the corner of their eyes, saw the magician
elbow his colleagues awake and foist the sinister glow-pyramid in
their faces. He crept over to the iron-barred window where Dighcan
snored in peaceful manner.

Boulm and
Nolpin alighted, rubbing bleary eyes. They followed their master
dutifully on all fours, but on feet plainly ambivalent.

Baus continued
to suppress his ironic conviction that the magician was pushing his
luck. He watched spellbound as the magician looked down on the
fleshy face of Dighcan, whose lips fluttered with a wheezing sound.
The coarse tangle of Dighcan’s yellow beard made him look like some
abalone from the sea. Nuzbek seemed to desist the urge to perform
some dastardly deed on his enemy. But he thrust the pyramid
gingerly between the bars and uttered some unearthly sound that
instantly had a maroon ray shafting out to strike the guard Skarrow
squarely on the back. The ray was calculated to inflict maximum
damage and here Baus cast Weavil a wry look.

Weavil sensed
an opportunity and withdrew an object of his own from his tattered
jacket. Before Baus could stop him, the midget had tossed a pebble
at Dighcan’s sleeping form. Baus watched as the rock skidded off
Nuzbek’s outstretched arm and hit Dighcan’s chest, causing him to
spring awake in foul mood. Cognizing the weirdness of Nuzbek poised
overtop him like a crane, he jerked himself upright, seized the
magician by the scruff of the neck and struck him. The pyramid
clattered to the floor.

Nuzbek howled
in dismay and reeled back in an attempt to snatch back the pyramid
but could not hold his balance. Dighcan and he hopped back and
forth in a shadowy bird dance. Nolpin acquired enough wits to lash
out at Dighcan and send him staggering back. But Dighcan kneed the
magician in the groin. Nuzbek fell groaning but won temporarily
free of the ruffian’s grip and the lethal beating that hung in the
air—but not before Dighcan had delivered Nuzbek a bully fist to the
chest that had him scrambling for air.

The door burst
open. Graves and his man Skarrow leapt in like stormcrows, cracking
whips and waving torches. Dighcan was grimacing, rubbing his aching
knuckles along Nuzbek’s skull. Skarrow was efforting to shake the
haze out of his head, likely the aftereffect of Nuzbek’s eerie
glow-ray.

Graves studied
the scene with a contemptuous fervency. “You idiotic villains! What
have we here? A dancing duo?”

Dighcan
muttered obscenities but the Captain silenced him. “Nuzbek has
attempted an ignominy, well, what else is new?”

Dighcan
composed himself enough to speak with restraint. “This molester,
Captain, reached for my chest. Perhaps to tickle my privates?
Compose some ludicrous witchery? Whatever his lusty intention was,
it was one of diseased quality and spurs me to wrath. I abhor sneak
intimacies. As a prisoner of this institution, I demand
remuneration. Assaults of this nature are insufferable. I shall sue
the township if I must!—in this, I will ensure that my demands are
met!”

Graves gave a
series of sympathetic grunts. “In some respect, Dighcan, your claim
is justified; however, the matter remains open for debate. Other
matters are of more urgency.” He turned to the magician and barked,
“How do you explain this accusation, Nuzbek?”

“There is
nothing to explain,
Captain
,” Nuzbek snapped cynically.

“Well, what is
that weird curio you clutch in your hand?”

“A glow orb,
no more,” Nuzbek mumbled. “A bit of ornamentation which I won at
the Killboar pub in Brislin. Nothing special. Now, please . . .” He
attempted to sidle away, but could not get far before Skarrow had
hauled him back roughly by the neck.

Nuzbek loosed
a painful cough. “Careful! The orb is rare and has provided
inspiration and luck during my trying days in the yard.”

“I don’t doubt
it,” muttered Skarrow sarcastically.

Dighcan
protested: “Don’t heed the swine’s words! He has attempted a
perversion on me! I feel it in my bones.”

Nuzbek gave a
low, dispirited protest. “The dolt is incurable. He is a paranoid
hoodlum. Forgive me, Captain—but look to Leamoine for crimes of
this kind . . .”

“Do not
attempt to blame Leamoine for your perversions!” growled
Graves.

Nuzbek
attempted to enhance his argument, but was not allowed. He was in
pain. He fell back wincing. “As for the trifling knick-knack that
glows, ’tis merely a convenience of luminescence with which I was
using to peer out the window.”

“And why
so?”

“To gauge the
upcoming storm. See how it will affect our labours on the
morrow.”

Graves gave an
incredulous snort.

Skarrow
endorsed the Captain’s sentiment. “I have a hunch that this Nuzbek
is a lying hound and that this ‘pyramid’ is somehow responsible for
the stinging of my back!”