The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (28 page)

       
"I don't have much
luck," said Togura.

       
So many things had gone
wrong. Was he unlucky? Was he cursed? Was there an inescapable doom upon him?
Back in the old days, when he had lived on his father's estate in Sung, he had
never paid any attention at all to signs, omens, portents or the traditional
prognosticating indications - bad dreams, flecks of white in the fingernails,
unexpected encounters with two cats keeping company and so forth - but in recent
days he had found himself becoming increasingly superstitious.

       
"Give me the
day," said Togura, using a traditional formula for addressing the sun.

       
And, so saying, he bowed
four times to that luminary, a practice which, or so he had heard, would bring
good luck.

       
It didn't.

       
He had followed the
riverbank south for scarcely half a day when he became aware that someone was
following him. Stopping to listen, he realised there was someone in the trees
alongside him. He hastened along the bank - and two men, armed and in armour,
stepped out in front of him.

       
Togura drew his sword.

       
"Wah -
Warguild!" shouted Togura, using one of his father's old battlecries.

       
The two men drew their
own weapons.

       
"On the other
hand," muttered Togura, looking around and seeing that another two men had
stepped out of the forest behind him, "maybe we could negotiate ..."

       
And, so saying, he threw
his sword in the river - an action which may have saved his life, but did not
save his dignity, for the armoured men promptly crowded in, looted him and made
him prisoner.

       
"This is not my
lucky day," said Togura.

       
And, on that score, he
was quite right.

       
- I could have jumped in
the river.

     
  
So thought Togura, after he had
finished lamenting his bad luck.

       
Then he had second
thoughts.

       
- No. The river would
only have carried me down to Lorford. These must be Prince Comedo's soldiers.
They would have taken me in Lorford if they hadn't taken me here.

       
A little later he had
third thoughts.

       
- If these are Comedo's
soldiers, their behavior's very odd.

       
But, even though he
later had fourth and fifth thoughts, he was unable to work out who or what the
soldiers were. They had no permanent camp, but slept rough. They risked small,
bright, smokeless fires by day, but would not have a fire by night. As they
moved from place to place, they sometimes met other groups of soldiers carrying
the same weapons and wearing the same armour, occasions which would lead to
long, earnest, low-voiced conferences. Every one of these soldiers wore, slung
round his neck on a cord, a strangely decorated oval ceramic tile.

       
Togura, their captive,
was made to carry a great weight of gear like a beast of burden, to scrape out
primitive latrine pits, to gather firewood, light fires and tend fires. This he
endured; there was no point in complaining, as he had no language in common
with these strange foreigners. But what he really resented, more than anything
else, was that they refused to share their rations with him, making him eat his
own salt beef.

       
And Togura made one
solemn resolution:

       
- If I ever get out of
this again, I'll never eat salt beef again in all my life.

       
That was for certain.

Chapter 24

       
Togura woke from
unpleasant dreams about salt beef to find that it was night. Without surprise,
he noted that it was cold and wet. The night was full of shadows and pattering
rain. His clothes were damp; his knees were aching; his flesh felt thin. Cold
rainwater - very wet rainwater, by the feel of it - was dripping down his neck.

       
Perhaps this was the
night he would escape. Yes! He would run away into the forest. He would make
for the north, for home. Home! Warm beds, warm honey, friendly voices. Once he
got home, he would stay there, and never stir again. As for the idea of being a
hero - piss on it!

       
Comforted by thoughts of
escape, Togura began to slip back into sleep. He was jerked wide awake as a
shift in the wind brought him sounds of fighting. Rain, wind and distance
hashed the sounds together; he could not say how far away the combat was, or
how many people were involved. Someone muttered; another voice spoke curtly, in
a tone of command. Togura realised the soldiers were all wide and awake,
straining to hear the noise of the distant alarm.

       
The sounds of combat
rumoured away to nothing, leaving only the sea-soughing wind and the tap-rapper
rain coming skittery-skit through spring leaves. Wind, rain and leaves were all
the colour of night. As were the low-pitched voices of the soldiers, who, now
that the noise of battle had died away, were evidently discussing it. While
they were still talking, Togura quietly dropped off to sleep.

       
At first, Togura dreamed
of darkness. Of pitch. Charcoal. Midnight. The colour of silence. Eclipse.
Throttling fingers. Dead echoes. Shadows mating with stone. Mud underwater. The
true ideology of the worm. And then, hearing, in his dreams, the high, cruel
note of a flute, he began to dream of brightness, of rainbows, of turbulence,
of heat.

       
He dreamed of a
flesh-eating rat in a teakwood beaufet, gnawing on a diamond tiara. Of a cat,
demolishing a boiled entomostracan. Of a whirlpool, in which the island of Drum
span round and round, its resident sea dragons prating poetry while they
slipped toward destruction. Of a padma bouquet, in the middle of which was a
frog. Of Day Sue,t a sausage between her lips. The sausage became - well, it
became something which made Togura positively blink.

       
"This dream,"
said his dream, "signifies that you are asleep."

       
Togura blinked again,
and, blinking, woke. Blinking once more, he realised it was morning. Rain was
falling steadily. He wished he could have slept longer, but knew he was
expected to get himself moving. Cold and hungry, he quit the makeshift lean-to
which had been keeping him alive - but not dry - during the night. Hunched
against the rain, he tried to light a fire. It was hopeless. Yesterday's ashes
were sodden, the timber was damp, the wood was wet - nobody could have done it.
But he got kicked for his troubles all the same.

       
Sullen and resentful,
Togura breakfasted on salt beef. Reluctant and weary, he once more shouldered
the weight of the heavy pack loaded down with other people's gear. He hated the
brusque daylight. He hated salt beef. He hated mud, rain, wet, cold, damp, and
the prospect of another day spent marching from here to there with no apparent
purpose. This was lunacy!

       
As they marched off
through the cold and the wet, Togura longed for a shot of quaffle or bub,
anything to put some warmth in his limbs. Marching under load warmed him soon enough.
Indeed, it made him too warm. He was sweating when, unexpectedly, they paused.
There were men in the forest up ahead.

       
The men, a dozen in
number, were allies. Togura, conticent and uncomprehending, listned while they
talked away merrily. The men of Togura's party, who had been dour, sour and despondent
over the last few days - they were low on rations, for one thing - grew
cheerful and animated. One of them did a little dance in the pelting rain,
while the others cheered. There was a lot of backslapping and ready laughter.

       
Then thw two groups
parted. The dozen men went north. Togura's party went south, with their lead
scout setting a vicious pace. Togura, bowed down by the weight of his pack,
went slip-slop through the mud. He had no breath to spare on curses. They took
no rest breaks and did not stop for lunch, but made all the southing they could
with all speed they could.

       
After a march which
seemed almost endless, Togura heard axes at work up ahead, then the crash of a
falling tree. His party went past a forestry work gang, and exchanged jubilant,
shouted greetings. Then Togura heard the sound of a river, and, distantly, the
tumultous sounds of many men, of voices shouting, of horses neighing.

       
They burst out of the
forest and into the open daylight. They saw before them a clear stretch of
land, a river with a bridge across it, and, beyond the river, an amazing array
of men, carts and animals, and, beyond that, a castle on a hill. Togura was
stunned by the size of the castle. Downstream lay the smouldering ruins of a town.

       
"Where am I?"
said Togura.

       
But there was no-one who
would give him an answer.

       
As his party trooped
across the bridge, Togura tried to figure out where all these thousands and
thousands of men had come from. Seeming oblivious to the rain, they were
raising tents, digging pits in the ground, excavating trenches, shouting and
arguing. He had never seen so many people before in his life. He could scarcely
credit the existence of so many people. Most of the men he saw were accoutred
as soldiers. This was an army! Comedo's army? Or an army of invasion?

       
This army could scarcely
be Comedo's. Estar, from what Togura knew of it, was poor and sparcely
populated, its wealth and population both depleted by the dragon Zenphos, lord
of the heights of Maf. So this army had to come from foreign lands.

       
But Togura, though his
grasp of geography was sketchy, was convicned that there was no country within
marching distance which was rich eough and strong enough - and mad enough - to
dare and army of this size into Estar. There was nowhere all these men could
have come from. There was no reasonable explanation for their presence. With a
growing sense of dread, he realised the whole thing must be part of a nightmare
incarnated for the sole and special purpose of persecuting him.

       
"What have I
done?" wailed Togura.

       
Again, there was nobody
who could give him an answer.

       
They were now tramping
through the encampment. The ground underfoot was churned into mud. They were
challenged; there was an argument; Togura was made to drop the pack he was
carrying. Near at hand, there were a whole lot of men standing in a circle.
Togura had the impression that a fight was taking place in the middle of that
circle, but he did not get the chance to investigate. A squad of spearmen took
him in charge and marched him away.

       
"Do you speak
Galish?" said Togura, hopefully. "I'm Togura Poulaan, also known as
Barak the Battleman, or, if you prefer, as Forester. Do you recruit mercenaries?
I'm a trained soldier, you know. My father's head of the Warguild in
Sung."

       
Nobody answered him.
And, belatedly, he remembered that his father, Baron Chan Poulaan, was missing,
and probably dead. The spearmen were arguing with each other in their foreign
jabber. Coming to a decision, they forced Togura into a tent. He was just
getting his bearings - there was a monster in one corner of the tent, and
someone huddled on the ground - when he was dragged out of that tent and forced
into another, which was crammed with all kinds of people - men, women and
children - shouting, coughing, crying, bleeding, snotting public and eating it,
or babbling their foreign nonsense.

       
Togura was just about to
ask if anyone spoke Galish when two soldiers claimed him from the tent and
marched him away elsewhere. By this time he was confused, disorientated,
bewildered and positively dizzy. Then, as they marched along, he thought he saw
a familiar face. It was Draven the pirate, ambling along looking sleek and
well-fed, if a trifle wet.

       
"Draven!" he
cried.

       
"Do I know
you?" said the pirate, pausing.

       
"It's me, Togura
Poulaan. You know."

       
"No, I don't know.
Oh - snatch on, I remember! Yes, it's Forester."

       
One of the soldiers
snarled at Togura and thumped him with a spear butt. He held his ground.

       
"Forester, that's
right. I saved your life, remember? At D'Waith. I saved your life!"

       
"Thank you kindly
for the courtesy," said Draven. "And, while I think of it - welcome
to Lorford."

       
And with that, Draven
turned and walked away.