The Walrus and the Warwolf

There was an ominous graunching sound from the ship's timbers. They could not take much more of this.

Willingly, Mulps, Thole and the ship's cook laboured with Jon Arabin to set a fire. It spread swiftly, sending up thick black smoke. One of the masts began to burn, like a tree struck by lightning. There was a bellowing blubbering scream of outrage from one of the sea serpents, which slid to the sea to escape the flames.

That left two.

'Bucks Cat!' shouted Arabin. 'And you! Mike! Whale Mike! Grab yourself over here!'Six men versus two monsters. Impossible odds?

'Cat! Mike!' said Arabin. 'Go below. Bring up the chain.'

'Alone?' asked Bucks Cat, knowing the chain in question was that which had guarded Pram Harbour in Hexagon before the pirates stole it.

'If that's the only way,' said Jon Arabin, calmly. 'Or perhaps you can find some gnomes and fairies to help you do it. Now bugger down below and get it done!'

The pair of strongmen returned shortly with the chain, plus the shackles that went with it, and sixteen quaking cowards they'd forced to give assistance.

'Those monsters there,' said Arabin. 'Sling the chain round the first brute. Make a loop. Then loop it round the second. Shackle it back on itself. Graft the near end to the capstan.'

'Aye man!' shouted Mulps in high excitement, seeing his plan. 'That's the story!'

The men picked up the chain and ran with it, a feat even Arabin would have believed impossible. In a trice, it was strung in loops round both monsters and connected to the capstan.'Bar on, boys!' roared Arabin. 'Bar on! Haul away!'

With a will, men threw themselves against the twelve bars of the capstan. They heaved. Flames roared upwards from the burning mast. The ship pitched and heaved in the lumbering seas. Heroes pushed muscles to bursting point. No time for sea shanties! But Arabin started a chant which the others took up, simply:'Go! Go! Go! Go!'

The slack disappeared. The chain tightened. The monsters pulled away senselessly, sea serpents having an irresistible instinct to pull away from captivity (which is the only hope of survival for a baby sea serpent snaffled by octopus or squid).

Animal strength fought leverage. Leverage won. Unable to escape, the monsters began to panic. In a rage of fear, they began to fight, savaging each other with hysterical jaws.

Then one of the monsters in chain-torture threw its head high and vomited a fountain of blood. Its scales crushed inwards, its flesh ruptured, and, a moment later, the chain-loop tightened to nothing, cutting it clean in half.

The other sea serpent screamed. It thrashed wildly. The corpse of its deceased comrade slid back into the sea, drenching the waters with gouts of gore. The other monsters still swimming there went wild. In a feeding frenzy, they bit at anything and everything in sight – including the surviving chained serpent.

With its lower third torn to shreds, the chained brute collapsed to the deck, perfectly dead.

'The fire, boys!' roared Arabin. 'No resting! We've five to kill!'

At that moment, a squall hit, bringing drenching rain. The fire wavered; with a bucket of sea serpent blood, the pirates began to assault it.

Meanwhile, Drake, still clinging to wreckage dragging from the ship's side, watched with detached interest as sea serpents fought amongst themselves, their battle slowly taking them away from the Warwolf. The nearby wreckage was entangled with an enormous chunk of dead sea serpent. He wondered, vaguely, if the scales would make good souveniers.

Then he saw an evil-looking dorsal fin cutting through the water. A shark? No – dolphin, surely. Thus thought Drake. Then saw his new neighbour snout into floating sea serpent remnants, tear out a huge chunk of meat and worry it under. It was a shark! And . . . looking around, Drake realized it was not alone.

The next instant, Drake was scrambling up the wreckage trailing from the deck of the Warwolf. He moved as fast as a greased cat chased by lightning. He could not say how he got to the deck, but he was there almost instantly.

Panting, he gaped at a wild mob of capering bloodstained lunatics, who were screaming out songs and whore-jokes, whooping with laughter and yelling battle-cries as they flailed at fire with ropes and whips, beat it with green bamboo, or lavished its fervour with water.

'Drake!' roared Jon Arabin. 'Trust you to be skiving off somewhere! Get your butt over here! Get to work.'

Drake looked around for Harly Burpskin, but saw him nowhere. Was he dead? Perhaps. Even if he was alive. . . maybe this wasn't exactly the best time to try to collect on a bet.

26

Tameran: northern continent dominated by the sprawling Collosnon Empire ruled by Yarglat chieftain named Khmar.

North Strait: hostile seaway between Argan and Tameran; characterized by high tides, treacherous currents, mist, fog, storms and ironbound coasts; known in Collosnon parlance as the Pale.

Ork: deeply-indented island east of the Pale.

That night, as a jury-rigged Warwolf struggled north, Jon Arabin sat up late. By lantern-light, he did his arithmetic, using a base-twelve number system, an abacus designed to cope with the same, and a set of knotted cords for records. (He was literate as well as numerate, but paper and parchment were too precious for scrapwork).

Arabin's concern was his responsibility for the women sent overboard -/some of them his own wives. A necessary move. Doubtless. Nevertheless, the death-debt would be set against his record. Before he died,, he must sire children in numbers at least equal to that death-debt, or his gods (who had brutal tempers at the best of times) would be most unhappy with him.

Long he struggled with the numbers. But, no matter how he checked the working, or scratched his bald black head, or pulled on his nose, the death-debt was still too heavy. He reworked his sums in the binary arithmetic of Yestron, but they came out the same. Unless Arabin got in

a lot more breeding before his death, he was doomed. And death, on a venture like this, could strike at any moment.

He almost despaired. Then remembered that Slagger Mulps was, after all, technically joint captain of the Warwolf. And, since Menator had sent them north to start with, that eager imperialist must also take a share of the command responsibility. So Arabin divided the death-debt by three. Then he factored in two of the four children who were about to be born into his family as he was leaving Knock (a 50 per cent survival rate leaving a margin of safety to account for stillbirths).

He looked long and hard at the new result. His death-debt balanced out precisely against his birthlist.

Jon Arabin permitted himself the luxury of a smile. But only a small smile. Unfortunately, his manipulations were not strictly orthodox. His creative accounting would not necessarily get past the fifty-seven eyes of the Supreme Auditor. But, with luck, he might meet a fellow follower of the Creed of Anthus, some peaceful-living fornicator who would happily sell part of his birth-surplus for cash.

Arabin yawned, stretched – then sat up smartly. Yes! That was the solution! To make converts! Drake, for instance. An ideal recruit: young, strong, virile, healthy, and not too keen on killing or getting himself killed. Jon Arabin could convert him (maybe adopting him, too, at the same time, to strengthen their relationship) then set him up on a place like Gufling with a harem on his own. And bribe him to live there quietly, breeding spiritual credits Arabin could buy to set against his death-debt.

Arabin was so excited he almost called for Drake on the spot. But it was late; he should sleep, so he would be fighting fit if any emergency arose that night. Reluctantly, he turned in.

Come morning, he had no time to talk religion with Drake, for the ship's problems were worsening rapidly. There was nothing complicated about it: she was simply taking in more water than was being pumping out. She