Tales of the Old World (28 page)

For one heart-stopping moment he thought that he’d lost it. Then he saw that
the only thing he’d lost was the churn of water. The lizard itself had crawled
out onto a tumble of silt-choked debris. The spit of rubble sloped gradually up
from the water and at the top of it, fanged with broken masonry, the mouth of a
tunnel yawned hungrily open.

Florin grinned as he watched the wounded lizard crawl into the entrance. He
was still grinning as he turned back to Lorenzo, who was concentrating on
shepherding the boat between a fallen piling and a floating island of refuse.

“What did I tell you?” Florin exulted. “We’ve got them. See over there!” He
lifted the lantern up so that the flickering yellow light leapt after the
retreating lizard. “See all those claw marks on the silt outside the hole? This
is where they live, alright. Here, pass me the boathook and row us up to it.
I’ll find a place to land.”

Lorenzo muttered as he pulled on the oars, and the battered boat nosed its
way to the mess that served the lizards as a pier. Florin squinted at the spill
of detritus. He tried a couple of places before finally chopping the boathook
down into a fallen pile and fastening the boat to it.

“Right then,” he said, turning to Lorenzo and lifting a lantern to light his
face. “Let’s reload the crossbows, get in there.”

“Alright.” Lorenzo shrugged, and warily eyed the dark maw of the tunnel as he
winched back one of the crossbows. “Alright, let’s finish them. We don’t have
time to sell the tavern now anyway.”

Florin nodded distractedly. He had already armed his bow, checked his
cutlasses were loose in their sheaths, and turned up the wick on his lantern. He
waited for Lorenzo to do the same then bounded out of the boat and scrabbled up
the crumbling slope towards the cave.

He paused at the edge of it, lantern held in one hand and crossbow in the
other. When he heard Lorenzo at his back he passed the bow back and drew his
cutlass instead. Lorenzo reluctantly extinguished his own lantern and, as the
darkness drew tighter about them, he slung one crossbow over his shoulder and
held the other at the ready.

Thus armed the two men stepped into the tunnel.

After the stink of the rotting world beneath the wharf, the still air within
these burrowed walls was almost refreshing. So was the silence. There was no
drip of water or scrape of driftwood or rumble of wagons passing overhead. Apart
from the smear of blood along the floor it might have been as empty as a tomb.

They had gone perhaps thirty paces when Lorenzo started to wonder why the
tunnel was so big. The lizards themselves had been no bigger than a man, and
from what he had seen of them he guessed that they walked on all fours, or
perhaps stooped over in orcish fashion.

So why, he wondered, was the ceiling so high? It was maybe ten feet in all,
and the light of the lantern barely touched it. All that Lorenzo could see was
that it was covered with the regular claw marks of its excavation.

Suddenly Lorenzo was seized with a terrible suspicion. He swallowed
nervously, tapped Florin on the shoulder and leant forward to whisper into his
ear.

“Why is this place so big?” he asked, eyes rolling up towards the ceiling.

Florin shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they like the ventilation.”

“I thought you said they liked humidity.”

“Maybe they like both.”

“How,” Lorenzo said, forgetting to whisper, “can they like both?”

“Look,” said Florin, “what’s that up ahead?”

He lifted his lantern and, with his cutlass held as still as a viper about to
strike, he edged forward. Lorenzo was about to continue the discussion when he
realised that there was something up ahead after all. It sparkled on the floor
of the tunnel, flecks of lantern light catching metallic edges.

“Treasure,” the two men told each other in perfect harmony. Then they were
hurrying forward, the oddities of lizardine architecture forgotten in the face
of the creatures’ fabled wealth.

But when they reached the treasure it was not the sort they had hoped for.
Florin knelt down to examine their find.

“Eggs.” He spat the word and rolled one of the things out of the muddy hollow
that served as its nest. It was heavy, although not heavy enough to be gold, and
the pattern that sparkled so seductively was no more precious than a dragonfly’s
scales.

“Are you sure they aren’t something else?” Lorenzo asked with an air of
unaccustomed optimism.

“I’m sure. Remember that idiot who brought an egg back on the
Destrier?
That was the same as these.”

Lorenzo looked down at the nest, disappointment creasing the satchel of his
face.

“I remember. I remember the captain throwing it overboard too. But I don’t
remember there being more than one.”

Florin sighed, his hopes of riches dashed. “Maybe the first one hatched and
laid the rest. Look at the size of them. Bet it made their eyes water, hey?”

Lorenzo just shook his head.

“At least we should get a bounty for them,” Florin consoled him. “Let’s
finish off the escapee first, though. I wouldn’t mind keeping his head as a
trophy.”

He got back to his feet, lifted the lantern, and continued along the bloody
trail of his quarry. Lorenzo followed him, pausing only to stamp down on one of
the eggs.

The crunch was surprisingly loud in the confined space.

But what was even louder was the answering howl of agony that reverberated
out of the darkness ahead.

“Damn,” said Florin, and for once Lorenzo was in total agreement. The roar
that even now echoed around them bore little relation to the wounded thing they
had chased into this pit. It didn’t sound hurt so much as enraged. It also
sounded big.

“Let’s go back,” said Lorenzo, edging nervously back between the eggs. This
time he was careful not to stand on any of them.

“Listen,” Florin said. “Footsteps.”

Lorenzo listened. He felt rather than heard the beat of footsteps that were
drumming through the hard-packed earth. As they drew nearer he licked his lips
and tried to swallow.

“Here it comes,” Florin said. He put his lantern down and reached for the bow
Lorenzo passed him. The two men aimed at the unknown, the hairs on the back of
their necks rising as another roar split the air and the thing emerged from the
darkness.

At first it was no more than a darker patch in the darkness beyond. Then it
was a field of glittering stars as lamplight caught the edges of its scales. And
then it was upon them.

Neither man had seen its like before. Even in their memories the saurian
warriors of Lustria had never grown so big. The thing that thundered towards
them was actually stooped beneath the high ceiling, the boulder-sized muscles of
its forearms rippling as it reached out towards them. But if the talons were
terrifying, the crocodilian slab of its head was worse. It leered down at them,
a serpentine mask of glistening fangs and murderous rage.

For a split second the two men stared at the horror, mesmerised by the
ferocity of its charge. Then, a second before the daggers of its talons reached
them, they fired.

The bowstrings hummed as the two bolts blurred towards their target. The
first struck the scales that rippled down its belly and bounced off as
harmlessly as hail. But the second, which both men later swore they had fired,
found a softer target in the vicious slit of the monster’s eye.

It screamed as it lunged to one side, and both men smelt the rotten meat
stink of its breath. Florin snatched up the lantern as they leapt away from the
thrashing claws and scurried back up the tunnel.

“Reload,” he told Lorenzo as a fist the size of a small pig closed around the
arrow that was imbedded in the lizard’s eye. It plucked it out with a horrible
pop that was lost beneath a fresh scream of agony. Then it turned its remaining
eye on the two intruders.

“Duck,” Lorenzo said and, as the beast lowered its head for a fresh charge,
he fired again.

He almost hit his target. Almost. But this time the beast whipped its head
aside at the last moment, and the steel-tipped bolt bounced harmlessly off the
top of its head.

Lorenzo tried to reload, but Florin knew it was too late. As his comrade
fumbled with the bow the beast vaulted over the nest of eggs and hurled itself
towards them.

Florin stopped thinking. Instead he let instincts take over. Even as the
great lizard fell upon him he dropped his cutlass, slipped a thin stiletto from
his boot, and leapt forward to meet it.

He ignored the pain of the talons that cut through his flesh to slide across
the ribs beneath. He ignored the hot stink of its breath as its jaws snapped
shut an inch beside his head. He even ignored the terror of its bulk, and the
roll of the impossibly strong muscles beneath the impossibly thick hide.

He ignored everything apart from the slit of the beast’s remaining eye.

As the lizard wrapped its forearms around him for a final embrace, Florin
used its knee as a toe-hold and sprang upwards, twisting his body as taut as a
bow before its release. There was only one chance, he knew. Only one roll of the
dice.

But as soon as he struck, he knew that it would be enough.

The stiletto hit the serpentine eye dead centre, severing the black pupil and
punching through the jelly beneath. A cutlass blow would have ended there,
bouncing off the skull. But the stiletto was thin enough to follow the optical
nerve through the tunnel of bone and into the brain.

The lizard didn’t even have time to scream as the splinter of steel ended its
life. It just swayed for a last, dying heartbeat, then collapsed forward as dead
as a falling tree.

There was a boom as the massive carcass hit the tunnel floor, and a sprinkle
of falling earth from the ceiling above.

Lorenzo, who couldn’t quite believe he was still alive, rushed forward to
wrestle Florin’s body out from beneath the carcass.

“Are you alright?” he asked, dragging him clear.

Florin coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. “Apart from all the broken
bones, you mean?”

“Don’t worry about them,” Lorenzo reassured him. “They’re a small price to
pay for getting the job done. See, I told you it was a good idea to track them
down here.”

Florin opened his mouth to argue. But before he could, the pain, the blood
loss, and the knowledge that he was safe conspired to send him into grateful
oblivion.

“Well I’ll say this for young d’Artaud,” said Baron Lafayette as he examined
the colour of his claret. “He’s certainly resourceful.”

Count Griston, who sat across the dining table from his host, shrugged his
half-hearted agreement. It was another one of their dinner parties, and he was
wondering if Lafayette would be able to top the vin et bile d’aigle and os de
poisson gelles he had served last month.

“Ah yes, d’Artaud. I forgot about him. Didn’t he help you out with some
business in the docks, Harbour Master?”

The Harbour Master, who had been enjoying the way that the claret
complemented the mixed gastropods of the entree, nodded.

“Yes, there was something he helped me with. We had some problems with a
particularly vicious gang on the Dragon Wharf. D’Artaud did a bit of scouting
and discovered their lair.”

Lafayette’s mouth dropped in surprise, and he exchanged a glance with his
wife. But before he could say anything she kicked him neatly on the shin.

“Yes, crime around the docks is expensive.” Griston seized upon the subject
with a real enthusiasm. “In fact, Harbour Master, only last week I lost a
substantial amount of stock. Very substantial. Perhaps when you come to
calculating next month’s docking fees.”

“Please, count.” The Harbour Master held up his hands. “Let us not ruin this
fine meal with talk of business. And anyway, docking fees aren’t related to any
lapses in warehouse security.”

“As you say,” Griston nodded. “Now is not the place to talk about how lapses
in warehouse security weren’t to blame for my loss.”

Lafayette saw the Harbour Master’s displeasure, and on another occasion he
would have happily left Griston to make it worse. Tonight, though, he didn’t
have the patience.

“Well, if we have all finished,” he said, looking around the table and then
snapping his fingers for the servants. They cleared the table with a quiet
efficiency that wouldn’t have shamed a gun crew, then scurried away to fetch the
main course.

Griston, his wrangle with the Harbour Master temporarily forgotten, watched
them go.

“What is the main course this evening, Lafayette?” he asked. “Pork again?”

Lafayette smiled at the insult, rocked back on his chair, and cracked his
knuckles.

“To be honest, Griston,” he lied, “I can’t remember. I left it to chef to
decide on the menu. But look, here it comes now.”

The aroma that preceded the silver platter was mouth watering. It was spicy
enough to conjure up thoughts of Araby, although not too spicy to mask the scent
of roast meat and a hint of something citric.

The servants set the platter down on the table, so that the assembled diners
could see their anticipation reflected back from the silver dome of the lid. The
butler placed a silk-gloved hand on the handle on top of it, and looked at his
master.

Lafayette waited, drawing out the moment for another delicious second, then
gave the nod.

With a practiced flourish the flunky lifted the silver dome off the platter
beneath, then stepped back so that the diners could savour the sight of the
dish. When the sweet-smelling steam had cleared the guests did just that,
staring at the creation before them with three identical expressions of shock.

Lafayette and his wife exchanged a glance of absolute triumph.

“Ah,” said Lafayette with a carefully affected nonchalance. “One of chef’s
foreign dishes.”

Griston looked at his host then back to the platter before him. The carved
meat oozed succulence, and it was so white as to be almost translucent. But it
was the appearance of the dish that really drew the eye.