The Sceptre of Samnos

The Western Sea - Part 9

     He hadn't intended to fall asleep, but the sholog's firebolt attack had weakened him more than he'd realised and the next thing he knew was a banging on the door and sunlight streaming in through narrow gaps in the shutters covering the only window. He felt a moment of panic at the thought that he was about to be discovered and clutched his sword tightly in trembling hands. "Get outta bed, Kashlak!" a harsh voice shouted. "Rise and shine!" To his relief, however, the sholog just walked off, chuckling to itself, and he assumed that it was common for the sholog wizard to rise late. He looked across at the decapitated head, now covered with flies. Today he'd be rising very late indeed.

     More time went by and nothing else happened. Out of boredom he opened the sholog's spell chest and glanced through the sheets of paper, frowning at them in bafflement. The spells were totally incomprehensible to him, and the bizarre lettering seemed to writhe and squirm as he looked at it, almost as though it didn't want to be read. A few minutes trying to focus on a large, particularly elaborate, gothic looking letter accomplished nothing but a headache, so he gave up and put them all back in the box, locking it with the key he found around the neck of the dead sholog. He chucked the chest into a corner, into a pile of dirty rags, but then changed his mind, picked it up and tucked it into his shirt. The wizards might want it, he thought, and even if they didn't, he could probably sell it to someone who did. Magic always fetches money.

     The sound of shologs moving around outside died down a little as they all got into their dull, daily routine, and most of them left the village to go and beat up a few nomes, so he decided to risk searching the hut to see if he could find anything valuable. After rummaging around for a few minutes he'd found a pearl necklace, a couple of gold armlets, a few rings, a gold, jewel encrusted tankard, and a brooch sporting a small sapphire. Thomas'll like that, he thought. He likes blue things. To the victor, the spoils, after all. He wondered where the great boxes and chests full of treasure that Kerrinott had mentioned were kept. He suspected that he'd made them up, to encourage the sailors to fight, but if they existed they would probably be in the chieftain's hut. He hoped they did exist, because if they didn't the sailors would probably be angry and might take it out on the nomes.

     He froze suddenly as footsteps approached, and stopped outside the hut. "Isn't Kashlak up yet?" demanded a big, angry sounding sholog. "What in the name o' Hell is he up ta?"

     "Studyin' ‘is spells, I betcha" said another. "Ya know what he's like."

     "Yeah, skulkin' away in there, readin' his fancy books n' acting all high n' mighty while the rest of us do all the hard work. Well, I'm gonna get ‘im outta there an' get ‘im ter bend his back for a change!"

     "I wouldn't if I were you," said the other. "Remember what he did ter Snogrot."

     There was a slight pause before the first sholog spoke again. "Yeah, well, one day he's gonna get what's comin' to him, that's fer sure."

     He already has, thought Shaun, smiling in relief as he heard them moving away. His relief was short lived, however. A commotion broke out outside as shologs ran about in a frenzy, shouting and yelling. He strained to hear what they were saying.

     "Ambush! Ambush!" one of them was shouting. "They jumped us from both sides, dozens of ‘em! They killed all a Klakbat's boys an' mosta mine! We just managed ter make it back ter warn yer!"

     "Ya spineless weaklings!" screamed a second, much louder voice. "How dare ya run from nome ratmen! If ya weren't man enough ter slaughter ‘em, ya shooda stayed an' died like shologs! How dare ya run! You've shamed us in the sight o' mighty Skorvos! I should kill ya here an' now!"