‘Unless,’ said Mortari, ‘someone else is in here with us!’
Plaintly Grasp tensed. ‘Oh gods, we’re not alone!’
‘No,’ said Mortari. ‘There’s me and Le Groutt and Lurma and …’
‘I can’t find the damned trap door,’ said Barunko. ‘It was right behind me, I swear!’
‘Everyone split up and start looking for the trap door,’ said Plaintly.
‘Everyone?’ asked Mortari.
‘Everyone!’
‘Even the one who’s hiding in here with us?’
‘Yes,’ said Plaintly, fighting off her panic as she did not like confining spaces. ‘Even that one!’
‘That means,’ said Mortari, ‘we’re actually the Party of Seven!’
‘No, six,’ said Plaintly, who wasn’t yet convinced of Barunko’s argument.
‘Eleven,’ said Lurma Spilibus.
‘Seven,’ said a voice no-one recognized.
Traversing empty corridors, crossing abandoned chambers already looted and with stains of blood here and there on the floor, Shartorial Infelance led them at last to the twin doors behind which waited the throne room.
The Nehemothanai began checking weapons, straps and fittings.
‘Poet ran away,’ said Tiny.
Grunting, Steck Marynd said, ‘I’m not surprised. One can only hope that the potion that made him smarter than normal will wear off.’
‘Why?’ asked Tulgord Vise as he examined the longsword he’d found.
‘A man with sufficient wits will likely escape this wretched night with his life,’ Steck replied. ‘A man with the normal wits of Brash Phluster is much more likely to die, and most horribly, too.’
‘You reveal a cruel streak,’ observed Tulgord Vise.
Steck Marynd shrugged. ‘He’ll survive the night, I’m sure. Beyond that, however, well, since when was an artist hard-eyed and silken-tongued enough to tell the truth, of any use to anyone? That man could become an icon of dissent, a lodestone to disenfranchised revolutionaries, the namby-pamby favourite of the worshipping classes of fawners, hangers-on and other assorted miscreants.’ He paused as everyone was staring at him, Tiny with a frown, Midge with a scowl that made his demon eye glow, Flea with a wide smile, Tulgord Vise with a thoughtful expression, and Shartorial Infelance with an adoring one.
Suddenly uncomfortable, Steck said, ‘I had aspirations to be a weaver of epics, once. It’s said, after all, that there’s an epic tale in each and every one of us. It’s all down to just writing it down, and only the lucky few of us ever find the time away from the necessities of living, socializing, daydreaming and wishful thinking.’ He grimaced and stared at a wall. ‘Can’t be very hard, anyway,’ he muttered. ‘Look at Brash Phluster, for Hood’s sake!’ Then, scowling, he shook his head and collected up his crossbow. ‘Well, never mind all that shit. We’ve got some necromancers to kill!’
Shartorial Infelance flung herself onto Steck. ‘I knew it!’ she cried, loudly planting wet, sloppy kisses to his face. ‘Oh, you could be the Century’s Greatest Artist, I just know it!’
‘Tiny wants to throw up.’
Swearing under his breath, Tulgord Vise stepped forward and kicked open the twin doors to the throne room.
One of the doors collided with something that made a crunching sound, followed by muffled curses, and an instant later an enormous demon bedecked in supple furs, oiled chain, iron torcs and assorted other accoutrements, staggered into view, clutching its nose which was now streaming blood.
‘Bastard!’ it groaned, glowing eyes bright with tears.
‘Stand aside if you value your life!’ Tulgord Vise bellowed.
Blinking, the demon stepped to one side, and then, as the Nehemothanai bulled into the room, it said, ‘You’re too late if you’re after Bauchelain and Korbal Broach.’
‘Not again!’ cried Tulgord Vise.
Tiny laughed. ‘Look! Tiny sees a throne for the taking! Hah ha ha! Hah! Hah ha!’
‘Forget it,’ said the demon. ‘Tried that. It’s no good.’
Tiny frowned up at the creature. ‘You don’t know Tiny Chanter.’
‘That’s true, I don’t. Who is he?’
‘This is Tiny Chanter,’ said Tiny, thumping his own chest. ‘High Mage! D’ivers! King of Toll City of Stratem! Leader of the Nehemothanai! And now king of Farrog, hah!’
‘Leader of the Nehemothanai?’ snorted Tuglord Vise. ‘I take no orders from you, you brainless oaf!’
The demon pointed at the throne. ‘We’ve all been played. Bauchelain left an heir, and woe to the fool who dares challenge him!’
Tiny squinted at the throne. ‘Tiny sees nobody!’
‘Draw closer, then,’ the demon said, smirking.
Tiny crept gingerly forward, eyes darting, ears twitching at the slightest sound to the left and right, real or imagined. When he glanced back over a shoulder, Flea smiled and waved.
Six paces from the throne he halted, stiffened, and then slowly straightened. ‘I see a mouse on the cushion!’ He looked back at the demon. ‘Ha! Hah! Hah hah ha! Ha!’
‘A demonic mouse,’ said the giant demon. ‘Oh yes, beware Bauchelain’s sense of humour. The punchline of every one of his jokes is announced in a welter of blood, guts and messy death!’ It gestured dismissively. ‘You’ve been warned, the least I can do. Oh, and by the way, an army is about to crush this city. I wouldn’t tarry overlong.’
The demon then fled the throne room.
Tiny continued eyeing the mouse, which in turn had lifted its cute little head, twitching with both its cute little nose and its cute little whiskers.
‘Tiny can take it,’ said Tiny in a quavering voice.
‘Oh,’ said Flea, ‘it’s so cute and little!’
‘Heed that demon’s words,’ advised Steck Marynd. ‘Milady,’ he said, ‘best step back.’ He lifted his crossbow. ‘This could get messy. But that said, is it not our duty to rid the world of the Nehemoth’s minions, no matter where we find them?’
‘Then we should all rush it as one,’ suggested Tulgord Vise, hefting his sword.
‘Once I loose my quarrel, aye,’ nodded Steck Marynd. ‘You listening, Tiny?’
‘Tiny hears you,’ said Tiny. ‘Its eyes are glowing most fiercely. Do mouse eyes normally glow? Tiny’s not sure. Tiny’s not sure of anything anymore!’
Flea burst into tears.
Behind them all the double doors suddenly slammed shut, the sound so startling that Steck’s finger instinctively flexed, releasing the quarrel.
Straight for the mouse.
Mayhem erupted.
A block away and traversing corpse-strewn streets, Brash Phluster flinched and turned at the sound of the palace’s sudden, inexplicable collapse.
He paid the billowing dust and now flames only momentary heed, his mind frantically occupied as it was on the Epic Lay of Brash Phluster, a ten volume, ten million word poem unwaveringly adhering to the classic iambic hexameter in the style of the Lost Droners of Ipscalon.
Visions of glory danced through his forebrain.
Twenty-four paces later, the Potion of Ineluctable Genius wore off. He looked round, shrieked and then ran for the nearest sewer hole.
PART TWO
The Next Day Outside Farrog
BENEATH THE BRIGHT light of dawn, Grand General Pin Dollop cursed and then rode out in front of his legions. He wheeled his mount. ‘This is our moment!’ he cried in his thin, girly voice. ‘Those numbers you see behind me are deceiving! Mere conscripts! A peasant army and never mind all that twinkly armour and those big shields! They’ll shatter to our hammer blow! Run shrieking for the hills!’