Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (22 page)

“A vile
imputation!” growled Nuzbek. “How could I be responsible for such
mischief?”

Dighcan cut in
with a sardonic gleam: “Easily! In addition to your lascivious
pussyfooting, you attempted to ram a Flank’s stone down my
gullet.”

“Balderdash!”

“Oh? Here is
proof! Regard the missile that struck my left breast!” Dighcan
pointed at the rock which Weavil had flung.

Nuzbek lifted
an accusatory finger. “There are your culprits. Do not look to me!”
Baus and Weavil blinked in innocence.

Graves swept
his eyes to the ceiling and missed Baus’s and Weavil’s grinning
smirks. “Nuzbek, these irrelevant statements are tiresome and
unnecessary. I am not far off in my conviction that you are a
debaser, an incorrigible dandelion addicted to the fondling of
Dighcan’s body. No less, I am convinced that you are a fabulist.
Keep your hands to yourself and prepare yourself for a double
demerit for disorderly conduct and prurient behaviour.”

A strangled
murmur constricted Nuzbek’s throat. “Entirely unfair!” he raved.
“Even if I were this creature of debauched baseness you describe, I
enacted nothing of the kind.”

“Only because
you were interrupted from the act, which is why I am charging you
with an ‘intent of an ignominy’. Now, let matters be! I shall
suffer no more disruptions. Your gasbagging has caused us all ill.”
He glared at the others in the gathering who gawked shamelessly.
“That applies to the lot of you idiot lumpkins!”

The small
diversion gave Nuzbek time to cache his glowing pyramid in his
robe. Skarrow searched him but the device was never found. Nuzbek’s
thinly-veiled sneer became ever more palpable as he gloated through
his teeth. Peering about, Graves realized the object could have
been snatched up by any of the convicts, and sourly he threw his
hands in the air. He ordered his officers to depart.

IX

It was in a
dream that illumination dawned in Baus. Escape was so simple!

At half past
three in the morning Baus slid out of his pallet. He woke Weavil,
infused with a rich, exalted plan.

Weavil
sputtered an oath, deploring the callous treatment of being jarred
unnecessarily from his dreams, but Baus quickly clamped fingers
over his lips and cautioned him to silence. Weavil, in short time,
understood the momentousness of the scheme. Nuzbek’s baton was
gripped in Baus’s fist and they both crept to the door, quiet as
church mice.

Cautiously
Baus dislodged the bar holding the door. With a careful nudge, he
took the handle and had the portal shivering ajar. They slipped
through the darkness, disappearing on noiseless feet. There was no
sign of Graves—only Skarrow hulking several feet away with boots
planted on the edge of the veranda. His back was sagging, head
nodding and mouth yawning. In such a state of weariness, Baus felt
him an easy victim, and he was soon frozen fast to the slats by a
simple touch of the ganglestick. The two moved unhindered through
the yard. Along the north wall they crept like weasels, unaware
that Nuzbek and his cronies had followed them moments after,
creeping like vines under the high stone rampart.

Baus and
Weavil skulked ever downward toward the east wall. The yard plunged
dangerously into spikenard, while Weavil tossed ungrateful looks at
Baus, which he ignored. In a petulant voice, Weavil complained that
his urgency was wasted on inexplicable preoccupation with ‘ghostly
treetops’ and ‘gigantic limbs’. Baus cast calculating glances at
the beobar, as if his dreamy convictions were substantiated.

Five minutes
passed. The two came to the junction of the wall with the seaward
side, neither of them none the wiser of Nuzbek’s tailing. Gloom
hung in the air like dank cobwebs: the yard’s façade towered above
them like slate cliffs. Cold bare flanks met their fingers—worn
smooth and bathed in blue-black shadow. A brisk wind had picked up,
swirling the enclosure with sea air, sending chills up their
spines.

Spongebush
grew in clumps; prickly scrub elsewhere. Nevertheless, they
stumbled under the looming trees, with Baus cursing and dragging
Weavil along by the collar, heedless of the scrapes, itches and
abrasions that came their way.

Picking their
way through the patchy scrub, they searched for the block that Baus
had marked and obsessed over for the last weeks.

A fifty foot
hike ended; finally, the two saw the stone, gleaming in the
moonlight. The absence of light was a hindrance that was
unavoidable; several times they had tripped to fall nose to nose
with an ever more irking stench. There was all too much fermented
clam meat here while the watchtower flickered with a buttery glow
and the cupola lay pricked with a glowering torchlight.

Baus gouged at
the stone with Trimestrius’s gladius and hacked out a grim outline
around the rock. ’Twas a tense period, during which period Weavil’s
scepticism grew to considerable degree. But when the stone was
dislodged, his lips parted in an ‘o’ as Baus’s new blade hewed a
lip around the stone, mortar and chip rock flying off like sawdust,
as if crafted of putty.

The escapist
stood back, exhilarated by the easy work. The stone gave way and
revealed a head-sized opening for Weavil to crawl through. With the
assistance of Nuzbek’s baton and Trimestrius’s blade, the exercise
had become an elementary feat—liberation seemed near at hand!

Weavil
disputed the success of any escape. “And how are you to win free
when only I am puny enough to pass through.”

Baus exhibited
unconcern. “I have thought this out, Weavil. I shall escape from
the tangle of branches overhanging the north wall.” He motioned
fervidly. The gently-swaying limbs were no more than ninety feet
away.

Weavil issued
a chuckling response: “And are you to leap up to those limbs by
magic or are they to suddenly bend over to your whim?”

Baus
flourished gruffly. “Neither. With your help, I shall breach the
boughs—and please, if you don’t mind, get your torso through the
hole.”

Thoroughly
irritated, Weavil refused to show any cooperation and Baus became
fractious. “Listen!” he hissed. “The outer wall is rough enough for
footholds for a tiny person as yourself. Climb the outer wall, gain
the parapet; then crawl along the top to secure a bough pliable
enough for me to swing down. Is this not simple? If you can bend it
for me I can loft myself up.”

Weavil gave an
absurd laugh. “Nothing doing! You think I can do all this? I shall
trip and slash my skin on the glass which spikes the parapet.”

Baus’s eyes
gleamed with irritation. “Are you going to be touchy? Why be such
an infant while I bust my neck out here? Try this: scale the trunks
near the wall and from there ride a bough. There are many to choose
from—rich with twigs and knots and strong enough to support your
weight. My height is only six feet; I have an additional two feet
of arm’s length. If I can grab on to a branch, then I am free.”

Weavil griped
a sullen snarl. “What of the snauzzerhounds?”

“Ignore the
snauzzerhounds,” Baus advised. “They sleep docilely at the southern
entrance.”

“The plan
seems slipshod.”

“Better
slipshod than none. Do not fear, the scheme is solid! You have only
to creep over the parapet. Do what I tell you!”

Weavil gave
his jaw a snap. “A certain inadequate margin of outcome concerns
me. Chances are that I’ll crack my skull falling senseless on these
rocks below.”

“The risk
exists, but every move is a gamble. Now Weavil, hurry—as I see it,
you have succumbed to sheer timorousness from your obsessive
fatalism. I have imparted my counsel and bid you reconsider the
fact that my freedom is at stake too!”

Sensing no
scope for argument, Weavil scrambled up on Baus’s back. Awkwardly,
the midget let himself joggle into the crevice, lying flat on his
stomach. Then he thrust his feet through the hole, but discovered
that his head was too large to fit through the hole.

Baus,
exasperated, had foreseen this, and hastily stuffed clam guts from
a nearby pile around Weavil’s neck and ears for added lubrication.
Ignoring Weavil’s cries and tumult, he gave a sharp hiss when a
final push had the midget worming his way through the wall and
sliding down to the turf on the other side.

X

Baus’s elation
was short-lived—the moments fled by. The window of opportunity
quickly closed. The wind gusted in fits and starts, the drizzle
began to die and it was too easy to be heard by the guards!

He shivered,
knowing that Weavil and he would be tasked to navigate the wilds
beyond the yard without light and map—if they managed to get beyond
the walls.

To confirm the
qualm, a plaintive coyote wailed from the beobar forest.

Edging his way
along the ground, Baus avoided clumps of blister brush and
frog-hopped to a place where he thought Weavil might emerge. Fog
wisps clung in ghoulish trailers; damp, chill nonsensical shapes
formed and dissolved like will-o’-the-wisps, tightening Baus’s
nerves. He craned his neck. In the inky spaces, he could see no
sign of Weavil’s progress.

The beobar was
almost bare of leaves and the snaky twigs were glazed with a maroon
patina from the cloud-wreathed half-moon.

Peering back
toward the compound’s heart, Baus saw the watchtower and the
veranda where Skarrow stood stiff and immobile. In minutes he would
become mobile again!

Baus wracked
his brains. Should he slink back and re-freeze the guard now?

No. Surely he
would miss Weavil’s appearance!

But where was
the pest? He should be on high now, dangling over the north wall,
throwing down a limb. It seemed unlikely that the midget had
succeeded.

Mouthing
curses, Baus paced his way to calmness. But then he caught a
glimpse of a small quivering shape struggling perhaps eighteen feet
above him. The hovering shadow was only a few feet above the
glass-spiked parapet. From the lower leafy tangle he discerned
Weavil dangling like a possum.

Baus dashed
under the shadow. He cupped his hands round his mouth, calling up
in a hoarse whisper.

“Curb your
haste!” came the crass voice shafting down. “Can you not see that I
am in jeopardy?”

Baus winced.
Certainly Weavil’s temperament was becoming onerous. The plan
hinged on his ability to sustain himself. If the long bough bent
too much, they would be lost. As it stood, it had not bent enough.
Even if six Weavils jumped on the bough, there would still remain
six empty feet of air and Baus loosed a sigh of rage.

He was about
to voice Weavil a sharp command when he heard muffled shouts. He
pressed himself low to the ground and strained his eyes in the
gloom. He heard a strange whooshing, as of air being blown against
a sail. Baus grimaced, fearing what that sound meant. In the
dampness, he could just make out Nolpin and Boulm huddled not fifty
paces distant with Nuzbek floating several feet above four jars,
which had obviously been dug up.

Boulm handled
the first jar, lifting it up to Nuzbek. The magician tucked it
under his arm while essaying to control the bizarre parachute that
ballooned a foot over his head, a version of the jerry-rigged
canvas from before. The ropes of the chute were like ailerons. He
used them to angle his weight alongside the wall with a strange
wind-like murmur. The craft lofted him effortlessly higher in the
air, over the parapet and into the trees where he passed between a
gap and descended on the other side.

Baus hissed
between his teeth. How could the trickster perform such miraculous
feats? It was as if the gods were against him. And what could he
possibly want so desperately with those wretched jars?

Suppressing
his displeasure, Baus felt a bursting urge to run over and brain
him.

He quelled the
impulse. Such a foray would be foolhardy.

Nuzbek
returned to his high position, floating down over the wall. His
face was riddled with a pompous grin. Nuzbek tucked the ropes in at
his waist to control his speed. When his feet reached the ground,
he motioned for Nolpin to take hold of one of the guy-lines.

The magician
beckoned his minion and all of the fantastic company, including
Nuzbek, Nolpin and the second last jar, floated easily over the
wall. It descended gently down the other side with Boulm watching
wonderingly on the ground. The last two vessels lay exposed at his
feet.

Deep in the
shadows Baus wormed his way closer. Despite his miserable thoughts
he crawled on. The answer to one of his questions was at least
apparent. Nuzbek and company were about to rescue their own skins
and secure the jars. The individuals in the jars meant more to him
than he could imagine, but how this could disturb his own plans of
escape still remained unknown.

These
questions knitting Baus’s stomach were testament that no good was
to come of the evening’s doings.

He attempted
to alert Weavil of the new circumstances but he was unable. Weavil
could not see him or easily grasp the meaning of his jiggery sign
language. It would be easy for Nuzbek to float over and deal the
two of them a blight with his glow pyramid or other wretched magic
before Baus could gain the branch.

Nothing to be
done. Nuzbek was just returning on a final pass to transport Boulm
when he ordered his lackey to straddle his legs. The two floated up
awkwardly, into the wreaths of mist, but just as they were gaining
the parapet, a strange event took place.

Boulm’s jar,
clutched so fervently, seemed to shiver. The contents suddenly
exploded and the lid, shooting off like a cork, geysered up a spray
of brine splashing into Boulm’s eyes. The convict squeezed his eyes
shut and gave a hoarse call. He thrashed about with one arm wrapped
around his body. He was blind. In the process, he almost dropped
his jar.