especially solitary gkhols, are cowardly, and so they’re not terribly dangerous for a full-grown man, unless he happens to be stupid enough to fall asleep beside an old burial chamber. But a solitary gkhol will easily kill a child, even a ten-year-old.
The situation changes drastically when the corpse-eaters gather together into a herd after going hungry for a long time. When they are in a state of rabid hunger, the beasts simply go berserk. Every child knows the story of the two knights who set out for some war or other and ran into a dozen gkhols who hadn’t eaten for a year. As you might expect, all that was left of the knights was their armor, and even that had been thoroughly chewed.
So what could two bound prisoners expect? Gkhols who hadn’t had a bite to eat for three weeks wouldn’t leave a single scrap of us behind.
One of the vile creatures had taken a grip on the bars with its little hands and was gazing fixedly at us, and thick, sticky spittle started dribbling out of its mouth.
How come they had managed not to eat each other in there?
The gkhol cast a carnivorous glance at me, leaned his head over to one side, and twittered derisively. He reminded me of a fledgling of some exotic kind of bird. Although, in fact, that idiotic chirping is the only thing that gkhols and birds have in common. Gkhols actually look like very unhappy and fairly harmless creatures, even if they do have a few odd features here and there.
They are small, no larger than a newborn child, with smooth, ash-gray skin, huge bloodred eyes like saucers, a disproportionately large head and small body with a protruding belly, short crooked little legs, long thin arms, and wide-spaced yellow teeth. People who have never seen them before and don’t know what it is they’ve run into are likely to feel sorry for them, or laugh, but certainly not feel afraid.
And that has been the death of many bold fools who have turned their back on such an apparently harmless creature when it was hungry.
“Eat!” one of them said suddenly, looking straight at us. “Eat-eat-eat! Eat! Aha! Eat!”
Like ogres, gkhols carry a few shreds of brain in their heads. The ogres, the only race from the Dark Age to have survived into our times, have degenerated from the most powerful race in Siala, the creators of the first new magic in the world—shamanism and Kronk-a-Mor—into stupid and extremely ferocious monsters. The gkhols, on the contrary, have grown cleverer and cleverer from century to century. But too slowly, fortunately.
They can remember and repeat single words just as well as parrots, and they are a lot more intelligent than the monkeys that can sometimes be found in the show booths on Market Square.
“Eat!” the gkhol said to us one last time, and then disappeared into the darkness.
Two others followed the little talker’s example, leaving the fourth to stand guard at the metal grille. The gkhol grabbed hold of it with his little hands, tugged at it a few times, and then hissed in disappointment.
“Just look at the little lad’s claws,” I said rather nervously.
How could I not be nervous, knowing that any moment Purple Nose could pull that lever and raise the barrier that was the only thing standing between us and a meeting with the gods?
“We ought to get some sleep, Harold.”
I looked at Eel as if he was insane.
“No, I’m absolutely serious. Sleep, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Go to sleep, with neighbors like that? No, thank you!”
“Whatever you say.” He closed his eyes.
This is a guy with nerves of steel. He could probably get to sleep with the Nameless One himself standing behind him.
I took another look at the gkhol standing on guard beside the grille. Demons of darkness! How much of that vile sticky saliva does he have inside him?
Noticing that I was looking at him, for some reason the gkhol started getting nervous, and he twittered. One of his friends immediately appeared out of the darkness to make sure that breakfast was not about to cut and run. Once he was certain everything was under control, he went back into his lair.
“Valder,” I thought, trying to summon the archmagician, “Valder, are you there?”
No answer.
As far as I knew from my dream about the magician’s former life, he really hated these vile creatures, but apparently this time the archmagician had no intention of interfering. A pity; I would have been delighted to see what a dry-roasted gkhol looked like. They’re much more likeable that way than when they’re still moist and alive.
I made a face at the gkhol sentry. He mirrored my efforts and made a face back at me, and I must say that the corpse-eater’s effort was a lot better, and a lot more frightening.
A little more than four hours had gone by since I first made the acquaintance of the charming family of corpse-eaters, and Eel had still not condescended to wake up.
Meanwhile the gkhols had already changed their sentries twice. They deliberately stayed where I could see them, staring with those red eyes, sometimes hissing menacingly, twittering and drooling, checking the metal grille to see if it was edible, and generally making me more nervous than the detachment of corrupt guards who once caught me in a certain count’s treasure house at an inappropriate moment.
Basically, the gkhols amused themselves until they got bored, and then the sentry withdrew into the darkness, but I could still feel the hungry gaze of those ravenous eyes on me.
The sun had been in the sky for a long time, its bright rays were shining in through the little barred window up under the ceiling of the cell and falling on the straw. Time slips through our fingers like golden sand, and no one can slow its pace.
At first I took no notice of the squeaking that came from somewhere above my head. But the gkhols and Eel did take notice. Alarmed by the unfamiliar sounds, the gkhols crowded against the grille, while Eel opened his eyes abruptly, as if he had never been asleep at all.
“Praise be to all the gods!” the warrior murmured joyfully, and his face lit up.
I turned my head to look at the little window.
“Invincible!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly. And that means that the lads have found us!”
“Hey! Is there anybody there?” we heard Marmot’s voice ask.
“We’re here! What took you so long?”
“Why didn’t you hide another ten leagues away? Then we could have spent another week looking for you! Are you alive?”
“Yes!”
“Can you move?”
“Our hands are tied!”
“That’s no problem. I’ll send Invincible down.”
“Find the door!” said Eel.
“That’s what we’re trying to do. There’s a whole heap of the Nameless One’s followers here. We’re just finishing off their patrols. Right, see you soon.”
Something glinted for an instant in the rays of the sun, and then a cobbler’s knife landed blade first, sticking into the straw just behind my back. With a squeak, the ling leapt down intrepidly from the wall, landing in the straw and ambling toward us.
“Now what?” I asked nervously, watching the shaggy rat.
“Now we get the knife.”
“I don’t know about you, but I can’t even move my hands, let alone reach for the knife. This damn rope!”
“Don’t be in such a great hurry, Harold.”
Meanwhile Invincible had darted across to Eel and started gnawing through the rope tying his wrists together.
“Surprised?” Eel chuckled. “Marmot’s taught the ling all sorts of tricks.”
“So I see.”
I took heart, realizing that rescue was close at hand. Soon one of the Wild Hearts would reach the cell and open the door, and we would be free.
