The Walrus and the Warwolf

tails and discarded them to the floor, where the ship's cat claimed them) the smell from the frying pan grew better and better, until the cook was more than a little impressed.'Is it done?' he asked.'Almost,' said Drake.

'No, man, it's finished now. I can smell the goodness of it. Here – give me that.'

And, confiscating the frying pan, the cook tipped its contents into two large bowls.'Where are those going?' asked Drake.

'The Walrus and the Warwolf are in conference,' said the cook. 'This'll be just the thing to keep them going.'Drake suppressed a moan, and ran away and hid. But he could not hide forever. Finally, the cook caught him on deck: 'Hey! You!'

Drake, cornered, prepared to meet his doom. 'What do you want?' asked Drake, pretending he didn't know.

'The recipe, man, the recipe! Our captains loved it. You were right, the skins do-keep in the flavour. And they say the guts slipped down something marvellous. There was only one complaint.''What's that?'

'They say next time, shell the shrimps before you cook them. There were bits of shell scattered right through the meal.'

'Well,' said Drake to the Demon, 'you can't say I didn't try.'

He was on watch in the crow's-nest, one of the few places in the ship where one could scratch, pray or masturbate in private.

'So give me that much,' continued Drake. 'I tried. And, in any case, they say that You would rather enjoy a good joke than a burnt virgin any day. So – how about it? Do I get to get drunk again? Or don't I? Please understand, if I don't, it may be a little hard for me to believe in You ever again.'

Drake made that threat because it was known that the Demon liked his believers to show some spirit (unlike some other, less confident entities, which feel uneasy dealing with any supplicant who is not face-down grovelling).

Prayer done, Drake longed to test the efficacy of that prayer. But the liquor ration had run out, and could not be renewed before they reached D'Waith. But there was still some cooking wine aboard, was there not?

There was not. The cook had used the last of it in preparing a goulash to Drake's specifications. ('Not up to the standard df the original,' the captains had complained.)

Drake would have to wait for dry land before he could put his faith to the test.

But dry land was a long time coming. The scrimshaw weather saw them five days at sea between the Lessers and D'Waith, sometimes nosing along at seaslug pace, sometimes becalmed, and once or twice actually being carried backwards by playful little currents.

Drake whiled away his off-duty by playing dice-chess and backgammon. He was so skilled by now that, unaided by other men's inebriety, he won a triple-ply solskin horse blanket which had once graced a stable in far-off Gendormargensis (a nice piece of equipment, but he had no horse), an ancient scroll in a dead language, ornamented with line drawings which he took to be maps of roads and rivers in some distant land (they were sketches of the palm-prints of the progeny of a forgotten king), a 'lucky rock' which he soon sent overboard (not recognizing this fist-sized hunk of dull stone as a diamond in the rough), and half a loaf of bread (black ironbread, baked on the Greaters before the Sky Dancer set sail).

But all good journeys come to an end (and bad ones, too), and at last the anchor crashed into the waters of

D'Waith's harbour. Drake, in high excitement, stared at the shore – not at the city of D'Waith itself, which was some distance inland, but at the small buildings built right up near the harbour. One of them must surely be a bar.He would soon be putting his religion to the test.

24

Name: Bluewater Draven.

Birthplace: Dalar ken Halvar.

Occupation: pirate captain, lately commander of the Tusk.

Status: always low, has been further reduced by loss of the Tusk, his fifth command wrecked in the last four years.

Description: cowardly untrustworthy bearded braggart of mature years who has (though he knows it not) a slow-growing bowel cancer, a small brain tumour, a steadily enlarging liver cyst, and an aneurysm in a major artery which may burst without warning at any moment, killing him almost instantly (though, knowing his luck, he'll as likely whore on for another ten years or more).

Religion: once seriously espoused alcoholism, but faith faltered after discovering this adversely affected his potency; may be said to have, if anything, 'a determined faith in the validity of the moment' (as Denrak said of Axis Gogman, who began his career as the ugly man in the court at Dalar ken Halvar, and ended up as Lord Tyrant of Greater Parengarenga).

'Is any of those buildings ashore a bar?' asked Drake, as the longboat cleaved its way through the harbour waters.

'They all are, unless things have changed since I came visiting last,' said Jon Arabin.'Good,' said Slagger Mulps, 'for I'm thirsty.'

Shortly they were ashore. Avoiding an establishment raucous with slaughter, a bar with a hole in its roof and an evil den nailed up tight with a plague-sign guarding its door, they slogged through shoreside mud to a low building where they hoped to quench their grog-thirst. Even ascetic Jon Arabin was keen for a change from vinegar and muddy ship-water.

A drink or three would set them up nicely for the trek to D'Waith proper – a thousand paces, some of it uphill.

'Beers, be ready!' commanded Drake, reaching the pub before his betters.

Eagerly, he thrust open the door and jumped down into the interior, being in too much of a rush to use the steps. The damp gloom within smelt of stale beer and wet straw. It was strangely quiet (the locals having been lured away by the fight in a rival tavern). Behind the bar was a man with the head and the horns of a bull.'Culamageethee!' said Drake in extreme surprise.

(The phrase, in his native Ligin, translates literally as 'the seaweed's slippery!')

He tried to withdraw, but it was too late, for the green-bearded Walrus was already coming through the doorway, with other thirsty souls crowding close behind.'Strength in numbers,' muttered Drake.

The bull-man was truly there, as large as life if not three sizes larger, moist reflections shining in his dung- dark eyes, a ring of gold snot-gleaming in his nose. A woman of deceptively normal appearance joined him. As she began setting up some thirst-quenchers, Drake saw her hands were the paws of a cat.

'What'll it be, strangers?' asked the bull-man, as his woman arranged a dozen doses of the world's best medicine.

'Who are you calling a stranger?' demanded Jon Arabin.'Why, Jon,' said the bull-man, 'it's you!''Ken fenargh eoch'alagarn sham narelonagarch,'¹said

Arabin, slipping into a language unknown to Drake.

'Shalamanargh ech hufloch dinareen,' answered the bull-man.

And the two of them laughed.

'Belay that jabber!' growled Mulps, green eyes registering a sudden anger. 'Let's have straight talk so all can follow.'

'Why, Mulps, man,' said Arabin. 'If you met a friend, would you not want a few words with him in the language sweetest on the tongue?'

'I've no long-lost friends here,' said Mulps, 'so no way of knowing.'

'No friends?' demanded a big brute who had been idling in corner shadows, at cards with a boy. 'No friends? Then how count I?''Draven, me old cock!' cried Mulps.'None other.'

It was indeed Bluewater Draven, captain of the good ship Tusk, one of the two vessels which had set out from the Greaters to accompany the Sky Dancer to Ork.