they had not always been as they were.
The pirates matched apace with the rearmost swine. The steps wound upward, becoming broader with each turn. As they grew in width, so the light grew brighter, filtering down through fissures in the stone along with cold drops of water. The screeches of small things scuttling in the dark stung the ears of the band.
They came to a rough crossroads. A narrow fissure went through the stairs, a stone bridge carrying them across. To one side the fissure widened out, its sheer walls plunging to depths unknown. But to the other it was narrow. Richards shut his eyes and consulted the information given to him in Secret. It was a strange sensation, this form of clear memory. He'd become so used to being bound in flesh he'd come close to forgetting what he truly was.
'Look,' said Richards as quietly as he could. 'On this side the ravine goes up. It is climbable. This is the secret way in.'
Piccolo joined him, craning his head at the distant light. 'That is the truth, Mr Richards.'
'We have to go up here. These stairs go right into the middle of the mountain, and we will not be safe there.'
'Quite,' said Tarquin. 'You'll still have to announce yourself to Hog.'
'I'm working on that,' said Richards.
'If he does not listen, my friend, we are lost no matter what. At least this way we may go down with a shout, if little else,' said Piccolo.
The climb was easy, for the walls were rough and close enough together that they could brace themselves in the gap. They reached the top quickly and hauled themselves out into a shallow cave. Behind them rose another cliff, to their front the heart of the Anvil.
The group crept on and hid behind boulders at the mouth of the cave, raising careful heads over this natural parapet.
The heart of the Anvil was a roofless cavern nestled in the centre of the mountain's cupped plateau, a perfect natural amphitheatre. Stalagmites protruded from the floor, their stalactite counterparts gone, a sky hazy in their stead. A rift in the wall opposite the cave looked out onto this same unclear air. All round the amphitheatre were tiered rows of stone benches, facing inwards to the very centre, the centre where stood the Temple of Hog.
At the very centre of this very centre was an altar of black granite upon a dais carved with frightening reliefs. The sides and top of both stone and platform were stained matt with a substance no one needed to name. Rusted manacles, likewise soiled, were attached to its four corners. A ring of seven Y-shaped columns surrounded the dais, the flat centre of each reached by free-standing bridges arcing in from an outer ring of stone. Set above them was a frieze of dragons, wyrms and chimerae.
In the seats sat thousands of the grey-skinned creatures as still as the statues, as drab as the stone. Were it not for the soft breeze of their exhalations their presence might not have been noticeable at all.
For five minutes it remained like this. The pirates, Richards and his companions exchanged glances, unsure of what to do, too wary to speak.
There came a scuffing of footsteps, loud in that deathly hall. Seven human monks filed into the room and walked round the temple. They wore crimson robes and baseball caps, a badge above each depicting a grinning cartoon pig in a chef's hat brandishing a cleaver. As each Y-shaped column was passed, a monk crossed the bridge and took up cross-legged station within. When the last monk, a senior-looking fellow with a huge peak to his cap, had occupied his place, he produced a small copper gong from his sleeve. He tapped a clean ring from it, and the monks began a nasal chant.
The hall was full of sudden rustling. The creatures blinked, as if waking from a long sleep, and settled into a counter chant to that of the monks, repeating one word over and over again.
'Hog, Hog, Hog, Hog, Hog, Hog.' The name grew from a whisper to rumble out like surf and they pounded their feet upon the stone. 'Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog!
'Hog!'
The chanting and pounding ceased, and the hall was cast back into silence.
Uneven footsteps, one a brisk click, the second the long, rasping drag of the uninvited, hook-handed maniac, a whistling wheeze singing in each.
Lord Hog limped into the arena.
The crowd went wild.
Hog was a porcine ogre. His fat belly swung low over the top of checked trousers, a filthy apron struggling to keep it in. He wore nothing underneath this, exposing a ruddy torso covered in wiry hair. His fists were three- fingered trotters, his digits spiked with greening nails. Beneath his snout tusks poked from lips whose ill fit caused drool to stream from his mouth. He balanced ungainly upon his trotters, one twisted into a wart-ridden club. Atop his head towered a dirty chef's hat, and about his waist was cinched a thick belt of leather from which depended blades and cleavers of all shapes and kinds, the mark of his trade, the mark of the meatman.
Hog held up a foretrotter. The crowd fell silent.
'Hog!' it bellowed through yellowing tusks. 'Hog is here!'
A wave of adulation swept the cavern.
Hog looked about satisfied, nodding his head as a greedy farmer nods when he counts his cows.
'Bella Maria,' whispered Piccolo.
'Brothers!' Hog cried, his words poorly formed, each followed by a spray of glutinous saliva. 'Disciples! Children! Mooks! Hog is here!'
'Hog! Hog! Hog!'
'We are gathered here today to celebrate the mystery of life! The transformation of flesh into sustenance! Existence through destruction! The world bleeds and dies, yet you, my mooks, will prosper. Hog will provide! Hog will feed his children! Hog on, brothers!' he roared.
'Hog on, brother!' bellowed the crowd.
'Hog on!'
'Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog! Hog!' chanted the mooks.
'Brothers! It is time for the sacrifice, the rotation of the great wheel, the turn of life into death into life! Brothers! Today you will feeeeeeed!' He roared this last deep from within his gut, and the rocks shook.
The mooks became a frenzied mob. Their chanting became a guttural wail, devoid of intelligence.
'Lot-ter-ry, lot-ter-ry, lot-ter-ry, lot-ter-ry,' they sang.
'Yes! Yes! O my brothers, o my children! Yes, it is time. Time for the lottery! Hog on, brothers!' he yelled again, his watery eyes wild with delight.
'Hog! Hog! Hog!'
'Fetch me my cauldron! Bring me my tongs!'
The crowd bayed. Into the arena came four fat mooks dragging an enormous pot on poles and chains. A fifth followed the cauldron party in, carrying a pair of tongs as tall as itself. Their eyes were covered with crusted bandages, yet they had no trouble ascending the steps to the dais. They strained as they lifted the steaming cauldron onto the altar. It rocked as they deposited it, its contents slopping upon the defiled stone.
'Lottery!' screamed Hog. He snatched the tongs from the mook-bearer and poked them into the thick gruel within. He rooted about and whipped out something that squirmed.
It was an eye.
'Give me sight and I will feed you! Is that not my promise to you all? One eye is not too much a price to pay for such food! For such meat! For life!' He popped the eye into his mouth. Jelly sprayed from his lips. 'Mmm, let me see, yes, it is! It is! Mook number 3912, you are most fortunate! You shall feed! Come on down!'
'Hog on, brother!' replied the crowd.
From within the heaving throng, a mook made its way to the centre of the arena.
'Well done, well done, my child,' said Hog, following up the sentiment with an oink. 'To the Cage of Sustenance!'
The bowing mook made its way across the floor of the cavern between two of the blind mooks. The cage was a large area cordoned off by bars to the left of the human infiltrators, and the mooks made their way directly below their ledge as they walked towards it. The joyful mook looked up as it passed, causing Richards and the others to shrink back behind the rocks and grasp at their weapons. They remained unseen. There was a raw wound where one of the mook's eyes should have been, and the creature's other was clouded with ecstasy.
