Dassuk: Part the Third: Whipsticker

By Gordon Greenlaw

Warning!

Contains barbarian warriors, bloodthirsty monsters and weird sex.
Does NOT contain sorcerers, paranormal powers or parallel universes.
Warranted dragon-free.

*The final tranche of the Bignose Cache

Here we find Leron the Dassuk’s very personal account of the final battle, the confrontation that broke the power of the Bunds and left the Five triumphant. We hear of the strategy, the tactics and the weaponry – and the fears, anxiety and indecision of those challenging the established order.

Life in Gheenbay, with its Colours, Guilds and Zeppground, its gambling dens, trading halls and Arena, its feuds, conspiracies and Cartels, is described in vivid detail. We learn how Leron escaped from Albanova and survived the brutal world of the Reefs, where swordright is the only law. There are more insights into the Zepptrade, and why the Zeppfactors were prepared to risk their wealth and power in a confrontation with their feudal overlords, Bund Krenditz.

Whipstickers, and the other new weapons adopted by the armies of the Five, totally transformed warfare in the archipelago. Leron plans an even greater social transformation, using his newly acquired power to educate foundlings and orphans of both sexes and protect them from circumcision. He dreams of a better world, of peace
and security, but his basic realism means he doubts it can ever be achieved.

For more information on the world of the Dassuk, including full colour maps, go to http://www.dassukworld.co.uk

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gordon Greenlaw
• Release date: Jul 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301694563

Gordon Greenlaw

Gordon Greenlaw is a nom-de-plume that conceals the identity of a former globetrotting business journalist/desk editor who now spends much of his time writing/editing/collaborating on non-fiction books, mostly about environmental and sustainability issues. The Dassuk trilogy is his first venture into fiction: its genesis dates back more than a decade, its emergence into public view was triggered by a family tragedy. A sequel is already taking shape.

Book preview

Dassuk

by

Gordon Greenlaw

Part the Third:

Whipsticker

 2013 Gordon Greenlaw

Smashwords Edition

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This book is dedicated to

my beloved son Guy

1972-2009

Table of contents

Prologue

Map 1

Map 2

Third reading – defiance of jhar the Martyr

Twenty-first revelation – flamer

Twenty-second revelation – silver

Twenty-third revelation – colours

Twenty-fourth revelation – hasus

Twenty-fifth revelation – iron

Twenty-sixth revelation – always victorious

Twenty-seventh revelation – Eals

Twenty-eighth revelation – orcan’s bridge

Twenty-ninth revelation – sacrifices

Thirtieth revelation - Sweethaven

For more information, including full colour maps, go to http://www.dassukworld.co.uk

Prologue

Dawn. An amber sun rises above an ageing planet. This is a placid world, dreaming through the millennia. Tectonic plates stopped their wandering eons ago. Volcanoes have cooled. Mountains thrust up in the planet's turbulent youth have been worn down to insignificant nubs; polar ice caps are stable.

From above, this is a blue planet. Only a random freckling of green islands now remains, some small and isolated, others clustered together into vast archipelagos. The mineral rich seas are shallow; sediments have filled the oceanic trenches. Clouds veil the blue in brilliant white lace: patterns that imply predictable weather rarely given to extremes.

Some things are different: the two sizeable moons, the dense atmosphere, the axial tilt. But there is life there, in abundance, on the islands and in the seas.

All but a few of the islands are low-lying, marshy, fringed with tangles of stunted mangrove. Inland, there are no trees, no grasses. Where the soil is dry enough, briars, ferns and bromeliads battle for light and nutrients. Open fresh water is rare: sedges and lotus have colonised all but the deepest pools and channels.

Amidst the green, feathered creatures pluck fruit from the briars, hunt insects and small reptiles, seek prey in the shallows. There are creatures in the sky as well, but these are not feathered. Everything that flies, from the smallest nectar drinker to the carrion eater riding the thermals, is a fur bearing mammal. The bats have taken over the skies.

And there is more. Here is a major landmass. At night, in the shifting light of the two moons the darkness on the sea looks at first sight to be a single island, mainly low-lying, bordered by wide mudflats ravaged by complex tides. But the moons’ light gleams on a thousand shallow channels threading the darkness. Daylight would reveal a steamy maze of low-lying islands, some large, separated by narrow winding creeks and patches of sedge-choked marsh.

And yet more. Lights speckle the darkness. Furnaces glow. Alien reeks battle with the stench of decaying greenstuffs. Intelligent life is burgeoning here.

Map 1

Map 2

Book of Revelations

Compilation authorised by Third Convocation of Pod Yot, with additional material from the Ras Hold Archives and donations by the Elders of Brelana.

Footnotes and comments by the Chosen Archivists

Part the Third

Third Reading

Defiance of Jhar the Martyr

CONFIDENTIAL – FOR THE EMERALD CHAMBER ONLY

Examination of the Renegade

As recorded by Snela, Clerk to the Bunds United

Day One – Minor Chastisement administered at dawn.

Question: Your name, sept and bund.

Response: My name? Never mind my name, you slimy little scrat. What’s yours? Who the **** are you to drag me out of my bed at night, terrorise my family? By what right?

Interval for Moderate Chastisement.

Question: Your name, sept and bund.

Response: **** you.

Interval for Moderate Chastisement.

Question: Your name, sept and bund.

Response: **** you, you know who I am. Jhar, that’s my name, Captain Jhar to you, scum, captain of the Peace Troop, Gheenbay’s finest. And who are you, scum, and where is this ****hole exactly?

Question: Your sept and bund.

Response: Who the **** cares these days? The bunds are a joke, Gheenbay is the future, ****face.

Question: You wish further Chastisement.

Response: Stupid question.

Question: Your sept and bund.

Response: Why the **** would you want to know that? I haven’t used my Initiate name for more than forty Wets. What does it matter now? I’m a man of Gheenbay, I made my own way in the world, I owe nothing to any sept or bund, they did ****all for me.

Question: You wish further Chastisement.

Response: Do you realise how red your face is now? And those ugly little eyes of yours are popping. Does watching these bully boys beat the **** out of me get you going, hey? Need blood to get your teeny weeny ******* up, hey?

Interval for Moderate Correction, twice repeated. Subject inert, returned to confinement.

Day Two – subject scrutinized at sunup and judged fit for examination. One measure of drinking water prescribed.

Question: Your sept and bund.

Response: And greetings to you, too, Popeye. So you want to know about my miserable ******* useless bund and my ******* even more useless sept, do you? Well, we can’t have you getting overexcited again, can we, hey? And the really funny thing is you’ll never have heard of my bund, never mind my sept. It doesn’t exist any more, see? The Rhenz wiped out what was left about ten Wets ago, and good riddance.

The DhaRheen, that’s who we were. They told us, when we were young, that in the old days our Black and Yellow flew over half of Lah. Maybe. But when I was old enough, I realised all we had was Gar Yhet a flyspeck, an islet you could walk across in a morning, land so worthless that only the Huntz would want it.

There was nothing there worth half a shovel of ****. The B’Lahzi held all the grazing water that could be defended against the Huntz, the soil on Gar Yhet was thin; we lived on lilyroot and reedbread, with a little leafgreen on special days. A long dozen of strong men could have pushed our hold over with their bare hands. We all hoped to become militiamen, of course. Ha. Some hope.

Question: Your sept and vocation.

Response: The Jhanga, the Jhanga, all right? Iron hunters, can you believe it? Who needs to grub for bog iron any more? And on Gar Yhet there was **** all iron, so we really were a waste of time. Know what we were reduced to? Saltburning, that’s what, and so were most of the DhaRheen septs. And most of what we burned was on Upper Lah or Ludda, so we always lived in fear of the bund militias. Not that anybody there was really bothered about the blacksalt, they got most of it back in tribute anyway, but it kept the militias busy.

Question: Your father’s name.

Response: What are you after, for ****** sake? My father was Jhar as well, if you must know. I barely remember him, he got drunk when I was still ******* yellow, fell into a ditch, drowned. Then the bundlord at the time, rot him, decreed he must have stolen the fenny, so took my youngest sister in retribution, and sold her to the Huntz. Officially, of course, she was destined for the block in Gheenbay, but we all knew what really happened.

Question: You are accusing your bundlord of a heinous crime.

Response: Come on, Popeye, you must know that happened all the time, out on the Margins. What else was there to sell but flesh, and what flesh brought the highest prices? Only the bolder slave traders ventured out our way, most of the crop had to be sold to Grey Krutz intermediaries, who made the real profit on the deal. Huntzis didn’t have much silver, true, but they had other things to barter: true meat, gewgaws, fenny, even the occasional bottle of arrak.

We didn’t sell them virgins, of course, the big-bellied scrat who sat on top of our particular ****heap made sure of that. He’d **** every one before handing them over, even though they would obviously be the least attractive. Half of them would be his daughters anyway. A fine piece of work, our bundlord.

Question. You were Initiated.

Response: Of course I ******* was, and I did it the hard way, without any of these sneaky ointments that numb your ******. And I know you know that, because my pants were unlaced this morning. Checking you hadn’t snared a dassuk, were you, Popeye? Or do you just like ogling a real man’s ********, hey?

Interval for Moderate Correction. One measure of water prescribed. Subject remained conscious and fit for further examination.

Question: You swore fealty to your Lord at your Initiation.

Response: Of course I ******* did. What sort of question is that? Everybody swears fealty and kisses feet at their Initiation. It was only my twelfth Wet, my father was dead, I’d never been off Gar Yhet. It was swear, or starve, or wear an iron collar. What would you have done, Popeye, hey?

Question: You broke your oath and fled South without the authority of your Lord.

Response: As if he gave a ****. Most of the young Initiates took off sooner or later, there was fuck-all for us on our flyspeck. So we went off to other Islands, and sweated for silver, and came back from time to time with a few spangles for our families. And the bundlord took half – at least. I told you he was a fine piece of work.

Question: You refused service in your Lord’s militia.

Response: What? What the **** are you talking about? We were queuing up to join, you *********. All of us young Initiates, all we wanted was a sword and a bed in the hold and a full belly every day. There were pleasure slaves as well in there, you know. But there was no silver for more than forty men or so, so the high rankers got first pick, and the rest of us burned saltbush, if we were lucky. You really do know ****-all about the DhaRheen, hey, *********?

Interval for Minor Chastisement. Bleeding staunched. One measure of water prescribed.

Question: You became renegade.

Response: Who cares? Who gives a ****? I just did what thousands had done before me, I followed the silver. Men from every Great Island, from every Bund. Maybe if I’d been a skilled craftsman or a jongleur the bund would have wanted to keep me there, but I was just a big, strong lad, and often in trouble for brawling. No one tried to stop me: no one waved me off except my mother. Too late to start worrying about renegades, Popeye, those days are long gone.

Question: You know the penalties renegades face.

Response: Oh for ****** sake. Look, Popeye, I have no idea why I’m here or who you are or what the **** you’re after. But let me tell you something. You think the Dassuk took his Eyes and Ears with him when he vanished, hey? Wrong, so wrong. They’re still out there, right through the Great Islands and the marshes, still watching, still listening. Huntzis and Zeppers, hawkers, bandits, militiamen, even bundlords. And they still report back to the Gheenbay Council and the rest, and to me. The Council and the Peace Troop will know I’m here by now, and they’ll know who you are as well.

My bet is you’re Krenditzi, and this ****heap is on Smilt or Makrali. You want to guess what will happen if I don’t walk out of here very soon, hey, *********?

Interval for consultation. Subject returned to confinement. Two measures of water and one of leafgreen prescribed.

Question: You wish to lose a testicle.

Response: What? Popeye, you’re making a big mistake, a really big mistake. Whatever you think I know, ask yourself, is it worth your life? Believe me, I know nothing worth that much, nothing. See sense, Krenditzi, before it’s too late. Hey?

Question: You were the Dassuk’s familiar.

Response: What the **** do you mean? Are you talking about the Nightmare? Or one of the Five? What is a familiar, for pity’s sake?

Question: You permitted the Dassuk to perform deviant acts upon your body.

Response: **** off, you sad little man. Go back to diddling little boy’s ********.

Question: You wish to lose a testicle.

Response: Try that, ********, and you’ll finish up eating your own testicles, I promise you.

Interval. Subject removed to Theatre of Correction. Left testicle removed as per authorization of the Emerald Chamber. Subject returned to confinement. Two measures of water prescribed.

Day Three. Subject scrutinised at sunup and judged fit for examination. Two measures of water prescribed. No dressing change.

Question: You know what this is.

Response: Oh Popeye, Popeye, sweetheart, what have you done, what have you fucking well done? How could you be such a ******** ? Now we’re both dead men walking. You’ll have to kill me, my sons will kill you, all for what?

Question: You wish to see two testicles on this dish.

Response: No thank you, my lovely. One is revolting enough. Now you’ve really got me curious. What could I possibly tell you that’s worth the risk you’re taking?

Question: You were the Dassuk’s familiar.

Response: Oh, for fuck’s sake, I lost a ******* for this? Listen, my lovely, I never saw the Joker show any signs of interest in ********. Yes, I know he lived among the Huntz and the Huntz spike everything with an orifice but there was nothing like that I saw, or heard gossip about. And nobody slept close to him, except the Nightmare, everybody knew that. Who cares, anyway, they’re both long gone.

Question: You conspired with the Dassuk to overthrow the rightful suzerainty of the Krenditz

Response: No, no, no, I didn’t join up with the Gheenbay forces until after the Krenditz had been smashed, after the first Battle of Gheenbay. Before that I was a mercenary, all right? Not one of the big, famous bands, I have to admit, not the Jollymen or the Sure Strikers. I joined the Shiners. Bet you’ve never heard of them, either. Not surprising, really, we never came near Toyah or Bogron, the big bands made sure of that. And there was never more than fifty or so of us, and only a long dozen had ever had formal training in arms, or had decent gear and a sword you could trust.

Me, I was just happy to find a place, I had nearly starved for a while after leaving home and the Huntz almost caught me one night. I got a leather jack that fitted pretty well and wasn’t badly cut about, a boiled helm that came down to my ears and a rusty azana. More important, I could count on a full belly most days and a dry bed most nights.

Question: Your captain was a renegade.

Response: Kren One-eye? He must have been, I suppose, but so what? He never talked about himself, but we reckoned he was ex-militia, possibly even a disgraced junior bundlord. He came from the Northern Islands for sure, his accent gave that away. And he was a good leader, believe me. We heard stories about other captains: evil minded, treacherous, suspicious, slit your throat as soon as spit. Those bands did better than us out of plunder and ransom, true, but they lost a lot more men. Kren took care of his men, but there was always some who hankered after more action, more blood, more silver, more women, so he had to face a steady stream of deserters, which is how I got in.

Question: You fought for a False Bund.

Response: False Bund? You mean those Bunds that stayed neutral, that didn’t fight against the Five? The clever ones, you mean, the lucky ones? Yes, we took silver from some of those, but none of them were important enough to have counted for anything. Listen, when I joined up with the Shiners, they were just about to pull out of The Haunts. You think the La Mhon would have enough on their minds: yes, they had decent grazing water in the Southern Green, but the Kratz coveted it and there were constant skirmishes between the militias. And the Huntz had to be chased away and the lorca snares patrolled, yet they still managed to find time for internal squabbling.

Bundlord fell out with brother, the militia stayed resolutely neutral, so mercenaries were hired. Kren signed up with the bundlord, the brother