by George Jacobs
in Issue 111, April 2021
The calls of beasts filled the forest, and still Nigodira’s eyes wandered over to the beached canoe, where the stolen idol lay, wrapped in silk. Nigodira shook himself and tightened his grip on his spear. His was the last watch; at dawn they would resume their journey down the river, on to Monbissu and their meeting with Redeye, the sorcerer who’d hired them. Nigodira smiled as he thought of the great fortune they’d been promised.
Before he realised it, Nigodira was standing next to the canoe. Redeye had warned them not to even look at the idol, had been quite specific about that. But surely something so valuable must be beautiful. The temple they had burgled in Jabu had certainly held many other beautiful objects, and Redeye had said their value was as nothing to the silk wrapped idol. It would be a shame to not look on such beauty. Chituwa still snored in his hammock. He wouldn’t know. Nigodira’s hand crept forward.
It was very quiet. The beasts and birds had ceased their calls. Nigodira paused. Something disturbed the wildlife. Surely they hadn’t been followed? Chituwa had killed the only witness, a lone acolyte left behind during the festival of Ahura.
His thoughts returned to Redeye, that haggard face, those eyes that reflected flames even when the fire burned down. Nigodira picked up the swaddled idol and clutched it to his chest. It felt warm and he found himself smiling as he cradled it, feeling a strange power flow up into him.
The cool bronze of a blade touched the side of Nigodira’s neck.
“Turn around, slow,” said a musical voice, the blade pressing a fraction more against Nigodira’s skin.
The idol still clasped to his chest, Nigodira turned. A woman stood before him, short but powerfully built, her head shaven and skin dark, dressed in the garb of a mercenary. Her face was calm and a necklace of teeth and silver hung about her neck. Nigodira gulped, his cry of warning dying in his throat.
“Please,” he stammered. “I have coin, I have –“
“Give me the Thulan Idol,” interrupted Yolandi, the woman. “The idol for your life.”
Nigodira involuntarily tensed, feeling as if the idol quivered against his chest. He ran his tongue over dry lips. His eyes darted briefly over to where Chituwa’s now empty hammock was strung. “Why don’t you come with us. There’s a man in Monbissu, a rich man, we’ll share the reward. Better pay than the temple must have offered you. Please.”
Yolandi shook her head.
To Nigodira’s ears, Chituwa’s attack was silent, the sweeping arc of his axe aimed to take off Yolandi’s head. But somehow the woman sensed it. She ducked, span on her heel, and her sword slashed out the big man’s throat before Chituwa had even blinked. He collapsed to the riverbank with a gurgle, blood pumping from the wound.
Nigodira’s eyes grew wide. He took a breath and ran for it, his heart pounding and all his thoughts consumed by his desire to escape with his life and the idol. Nigodira was a good swimmer; he’d grown up on the coast, diving for pearls. He splashed into the shallows of the river. If only he could make it into the deeper waters, he felt sure he could make good on his escape.
“By the nine-hells,” cursed Yolandi, halting at the water’s edge. The spring flood had swollen the river, taking it up beyond its usual banks; it was wide, slow and choked with silt. And its depths were not uninhabited.
Nigodira churned up the knee-high water as he tried to run through it, splashing and flailing about. To his left, Yolandi saw something that looked like a twisted branch turn slightly in his direction, then disappear beneath the water’s surface.
“Stop you fool!” she shouted.
Nigodira heard the woman yell something but couldn’t make it out over the sounds of the sloshing water. He didn’t look round, couldn’t stop running or she might catch him. Why had he let Chituwa talk him into this? He’d survived this long as a pick-pocket, and now he’d gone and got himself all mixed up with sorcerers and mercenaries and ancestors only knew what. The idol throbbed against his chest where he held it and again a smile came to his lips unbidden, despite his fear, its strange presence working upon his mind.
At last the water was deep enough to swim. It wouldn’t be so easy with one arm cradling the idol, but Nigodira felt relief that he’d made it this far. Now he could properly escape.
The water in front of him exploded. Snapping jaws burst up out of the murky river, ensnaring both Nigodira’s left arm and the idol that it cradled. He cried out in shock and pain as the crocodile dragged him down and forward into the deeper water, the beast’s teeth digging into his flesh.
The crocodile began to thrash violently about, trying to kill its prey, or at least tear off a tasty arm. By some stroke of perverse luck, the powerful jaws of the river monster had closed around the rounded form of the idol, with Nigodira’s arm being trapped between the lower jaw and the idol. In the crocodile’s violence Nigodira’s flesh tore and he was flung away, leaving the meat of his forearm, and the idol, in the jaws of the beast, which now greedily gulped down its meal.
Nigodira splashed and broke the surface of the river, screaming in pain, clutching his bleeding and ruined arm and swallowing more water in his panic. He kicked out, trying to swim back to the shallows. The eyes of the crocodile appeared above the water some dozen yards away, seeking another bite of him.
Splashing sounded behind him and Nigodira felt a powerful grip on his shoulder. He cried out in panic, but it was Yolandi who had grasped him. She hauled him to his feet. The water was not even up to his waist here. Nigodira eyed her dumbly.
“Run,” she shouted and pushed him towards the shore. She herself began to back away from the crocodile and into the shallower water, but never took her eyes from the giant. “Come on old Ngwene,” she called to the beast. It was just her luck that the idol had been stolen by fools. Just her luck that it had been swallowed by a crocodile. “Come bring yourself to my blade.”
Yolandi had reached the bank now. The crocodile came after, through the shallows, lured on by the trail of blood that the wounded Nigodira had left as he fled away before collapsing beside his beached canoe.
Suddenly the creature gave a great thrash in the water and disappeared beneath its surface. The river began to churn about there and strange, mewling noises rose up from its murky depths. The water seemed to glow with darkness.
“The idol,” whispered Yolandi. Rumours of the strange and corrupting powers of the Thulan Idol were well known, at least to a certain class of arcane scholars and dabblers in the darker sorceries. Just to touch it could drive a person mad. Apparently eating it was worse.
Something broke the surface of the water. Its crocodilian origins were still clear, but in the moments it had been hidden beneath the water terrible changes had been wrought upon it. It staggered upright to stand on two thick, trunk-like hind-legs. Its forelegs had become elongated, each terminating in a single, fused claw, and its snout split apart and curled backwards to reveal a mass of tentacles that wavered about, tasting the air.
With monstrous steps the abomination heaved itself out of the river and onto the muddy bank. Sucker-like blisters erupted from the scales on its new arms and the creature let out a spluttering shriek that was followed by a cloud of black smoke issuing from between its tentacles.
Yolandi backed away, her thoughts racing. She trusted her blade and her skill, but this was… unusual. The creature continued to change before her eyes, as if the powers of the idol were taking firmer and firmer hold of its host. If she were going to put an end to it, she best do it quick. Her eyes scanned the mutated body and her mind searched for some pertinent piece of knowledge.
The creature turned its head this way and that, the tentacles flicking out. With a sigh it loped sideways towards the canoe. Towards the prone form of Nigodira. Clumsily, with its too-long arms, it picked up the man and stuffed him into its maw.
A tremor of nausea passed through Yolandi. But she continued to watch the crocodile thing. As it swallowed, bits of Nigodira dribbling down its chest, she noticed how a bulge in its pale neck throbbed and pulsed. The idol, Yolandi thought. Perhaps it had got stuck in the monster’s throat. It was worth a chance.
As it fed, the creature made horrible, slurping noises, its white eyes turned inward. Yolandi moved as silently as she could, circling round behind the monster. One quick cut, that was the plan.
The creature’s head snapped up, its tentacles tasting her scent in the air. It half turned and one of its arms whipped out with surprising speed. Yolandi dived away just in time. Then the pain came. Where the suckers had brushed against her leather armour, the material fizzled and smoked, and her skin beneath burned in sharp agony.
Yolandi gritted her teeth and sprang back to her feet, her bronze sword slashing out and biting into the creature’s arm. It shrieked and thick, black blood oozed out to hiss in the mud. Yolandi ducked the other arm but its tail caught her off guard. It thudded into chest and knocked her sprawling to land the other side of the canoe, the breath gone from her lungs.
With a groan she pulled herself upright. The creature came towards her, stomp-stomp. In a moment of inspiration, Yolandi passed her sword to her left hand, scooped up the oar from the bottom of the canoe, and hurled it javelin fashion into the face of the creature. Its tentacles snapped out to grab the oar and it bit down, spraying splinters.
As soon as the oar left her hand, Yolandi had run forward. She weaved between the two clumsy claws, and with a cry she rammed the point of her sword into the bulge at the creature’s neck and shoved upwards.
The scaly skin split with a ripping noise. Smoke, black blood, bits of Nigodira, and the idol spilled out in a fetid torrent to pool on the riverbank. Yolandi leapt back out of reach of the arms, but the creature was already spent. With the idol removed from its body, it collapsed and began to dissolve.
Yolandi took a moment to catch her breath and wipe the grime from her eyes. “Thank the ancestors,” she breathed. She unslung her back and fished out a bag that shimmered curiously in the dawn. It was woven from the tail feathers of a roc and would contain the corrupting influence of the idol, or so she’d been told. Using the bag like a glove, she scooped the idol out of the mud and then tied the bag up tight and thrust it deep into her pack.
Returning to where she’d hidden her own canoe, Yolandi pushed it out into the river and began to go with the flow, downstream. She wasn’t sure of her destination. Clearly the idol was too powerful to return to the temple in Jabu. Clearly whoever wanted to buy it was up to no good. Perhaps she’d pay him a visit anyway, see what he was about. Yes, that was a good idea. She smiled and began to clean her blade.
©April 2021, George Jacobs
George Jacobs’ work has appeared in Whetstone. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.