The Walrus and the Warwolf

'You were talking of life and death,' said Drake, with more death than life in his voice.

Fortunately, at that point Jon Arabin happened along, and told them it was training time. Drake, indeed curious about Zanya's whereabouts, questioned Yot as they practised sword under the stony gaze of the weapons muqaddam.'Did Zanya go to Veda, perhaps?' yelled Drake.

'Nay!'jeered Yot. 'You'll never know! You'll never find her!'

He danced round Drake, feinting and slicing something wonderful. Tall lanky sod! Drake, angry, smashed the flat of his blade against the flat of Yot's weapon. Sclapl Yot's blade flew from his hand and spun overboard, lost forever to the slathering sea.'Gaaai' screamed Drake.

He hacked at Yot's neck. He halted his blade just before contact, or tried to – but the heaving deck tricked him, and Yot got a pimple-scratch cut from the steel. The weapons muqaddam grunted.

'Yot,' he said. 'Grip, remember? Relaxed yet firm. How many times must I tell you? Go below. Get another weapon. Quick, man!'

But Yot's fingertips had found his cut. They brought him the savage scarlet of his own blood. Staring at it, he rocked unsteadily on his feet. The ship rocked under him, and he fainted.

'Drake,' said the weapons muqaddam, 'get a bucket of water.'

All this happened on a ship again known as the Warwolf. Jon Arabin had had a showdown with Slagger Mulps, threatening to kill off the Walrus's friend Draven unless the

ship reclaimed her original title.

The great lord Menator, their imperial master, would doubtless be angry with Arabin. But Jon Arabin, who had further considered this empire business, was already making careful plans to deal with Menator permanently on his return.

25

Penvash Channel: wild stretch of water running between eastern end of the Ravlish Lands and north-west coast of Argan; connects Central Ocean with Hauma Sea; gives access to the North Strait (known in Tameran as the Pale) between Argan and Tameran.

The Penvash Channel was notorious for storms, but the Warwolf enjoyed good weather as she ran for the north. The most trying thing the crew had to cope with was the hair-raising scream of the blue-feathered mocking gull. They shot at it with crossbows, and with some success, not knowing that Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, wizard of Drum, had put it on his Endangered Species List.

There was, at the start of this sea-passage, a mutter of mutiny from men who, being still loyal to Slagger Mulps, were upset at the ship reverting to the name of Warwolf But serious trouble did not begin till their vessel neared the island of Drum – and then it was trouble of an altogether different nature.

On a bright day in the Penvash Channel, not far from Drum, Drake renewed his acquaintance with dolphins. With something close to joy, he watched them bounding through the brisk seas, as slick as soap and every bit as fast as legend claimed.'Harly!' yelled Drake. 'See!'

Harly Burpskin came, saw, and frowned. Months ago he had made a bet with Drake that dolphins and sea serpents

were mythical; the manifestation of dolphins was, therefore, unwelcome.

'Well,' said Burpskin, 'we still haven't seen a sea serpent.''We will,' said Drake, with confidence. 'We will.' But would they?He could hardly expect to be lucky twice in one day.

The Warwolf strove through the seas with the wind straining against her green canvas. The weapons muqaddam was in one of his organizing moods, meaning hard times for idle hands, whether they were theoretically off watch or not. Drake kept out of his way, and got talking with a passenger: the youth he had first sighted playing cards with Bluewater Draven in the tavern at D'Waith.

They had not yet had time to get properly acquainted when the ship shuddered as if she had hit a rock or a whale. Then she was struck again, and out of the water rose a bullock-girthing sea serpent. Up, up it rose, slick with the glittering sea.Then sank again.

But before Drake had time even to laugh with relief, he realized there were at least five more of the brutes in the water. Under threat of doom, Jon Arabin gave the orders he must. The ship's women were dragged up from below and thrown overboard in an attempt to glut the monsters' greed.'That's murder!' cried the passenger, clearly shocked. Drake felt himself grin.

'Them or us,' he said, talking nice and spritely to conceal emotions he would have been ashamed to acknowledge as fear and horror. 'Which would you prefer?'

That gave the stranger pause. But, before said passenger could come up with an answer, he was seized by the weapons muqaddam, dragged to the stern rail – kicking, screaming, biting and scratching – and thrown overboard himself. There was something so amazingly comical about his performance that Drake collapsed to the deck, laughing.

He was still rolling around giggling – which was perhaps preferable to the alternative, which was to writhe around screaming – when the stranger who had been thrown overboard came bumping back onto the deck.How?

Drake had no time to find out, for a sea serpent hit simultaneously, smashing the stern rail. He waited to see no more, but fled.

Drake was high in the rigging when the stranger – a born survivor, that one – climbed up beside him. Down below, a regular slaughter was going on. But, since they were so high above it all, it seemed unreal; the funny little figures scattering and screaming looked like caricatures of human beings, like puppets. Drake felt an enormous calm descend upon him. Benevolently, he turned to the stranger, who was sniffing a bit – well, almost snivelling, if truth be told.'Enjoy your swim?' asked Drake.

He got a reply of sorts, but in strangely accented Galish too full of rage and fear to follow. Criticism, perhaps?

'What did you expect?' said Drake. 'We're pirates! You got off lucky, though.'

He elaborated, increasing the stranger's fury. Which subsided soon enough. Shortly they exchanged names: Drake for Forester.

Before they could start a proper conversation, a sea serpent pulled down the mast. Drake, falling, closed his eyes. The sea smashed into him. Breathless, he struggled, floundered, gasped. A bewilderment of sea-thrashed sun. Water up his nose. The sea-rinse blurring his vision. Ropes tangling his feet. A free-floating spar trying to brain him.And Forester?

The boy had been thrown clear. He was floating away. Drake, clinging to the wreckage of the mast, called on him to swim – but the stranger was carried away by the current.

The Warwolf plunged onward, listing badly with one mast trailing, and Drake holding fast to that trailing mast.

Three sea serpents were grappling with the ship. Surely there was something brave, intelligent and constructive for Drake to do. Yes. But he couldn't for the life of him think what it was. Closing his eyes again, he committed himself to his death.

On board, Jon Arabin, three monsters locked in mortal combat with his ship, made no such commitment.

'Fire!' he yelled, seeing the cook staggering about the deck with a dazed expression on his face. 'Go below, man! Bring me fire!'

Then Arabin grabbed a battle-axe. He hacked at the nearest sea serpent. As most of the human meat had run for shelter, the monsters were trying to crack the ship open, as woodland animals might try to rend a rotten log to get at the maggots within.

Jon Arabin, sweating, succeeded only in blunting good steel against a monster's scaled armour. The cook returned with a pannikin of hot coals. Arabin looked around for helpers.

'Mulps, me beauty!' he roared, seeing the Walrus trying to lever away an armoured scale with a crowbar, while Ika Thole stood ready to drive a harpoon into any flesh exposed by that strategy. 'Mulps! Thole! To me! To me! It's a fire we're setting!'