CHRONICLES OF GEMCLOD
Early Autumn 262: Gangrenous Gatekeeper of Gemclod
The autumn came and with it, a slight change in the prevailing winds. The smells in the swamp shifted and mixed into a new odour, slightly familiar but strange at the same time. Actually, as I was contemplating about it, there was just one new smell – a stench – that I couldn't recognise. It certainly wasn't CommaToes who was lying on bed in my office/bedroom/hospital – I had already got used to his peculiar sweet foetor. It had to be something else.
I came out and sniffed around the fortress. The beag dog meat drying by the kitchen? No. The freshly skinned beak dog leathers? No. The swamp itself? Not a chance! Then I found it.
It was Pozzo and her band of miscreants. They were all (including the baby) sitting on their usual spot by the back gate, drawing pictures in red sand, playing games and drinking our booze supplies. They didn't seem to mind the heap of rotting dead animal bodies that was continually being enlarged by Pozzo's ever vigilant kitten.
“Hi guys,” I began. “Ahem... Do you think you could-”
“Howdy, chief!” said Pozzo. “I was just looking for ya.”
“What? No, you weren't, you were just sitting here like usual. Listen, I want you-”
“We need a jail.”
“What?”
“Yeah, we need a jail to keep all the criminals in.”
“What? There's no criminals around here!”
“Ah, but there could be if we don't have a jail to discourage them, you see?”
“What?”
I tried to argue but to no avail. Pozzo was fixated on the idea of a jail and wouldn't let go. In the end I went to the stockpiles, dug out a long forgotten rope, and gave it to her. She tied it to a nail in a wall near the place where they all tended to hang out.
“There!” she said. “Now if there ever is a criminal, he'll be under our watch all day and night.”
The second day of the autumn I was aroused by a mighty scream and banging noises. CommaToes woke up, was flailing wildly with his axe, and demanded we let him at the beak dogs. When we explained what happened and that he couldn't possibly walk, he demanded we pick up his bed and bring him to the beak dogs. But nobody was really enthusiastic about the idea of hauling a bed with a mad warrior to beak dog territory, so we settled for a compromise.
We brought CommaToes' bed to the front gates, where he would be able to watch for any beak dogs that might be trying to sneak inside. He wasn't entirely happy about it but realised he had no choice.
Leperfish even built him a nice little shelter with a roof.
As I was passing Pozzo's group the other day, I heard a tiny voice: “Gimme!” I turned around but there was noone there except the usual five, and none of them could have said that. “Gimme beew! Gimme!” said the tiny, ghostly voice. “An' jewls!”
I was confused and terrified, but Pozzo's group all exploded in laughter, gently tapping the orphaned baby on her shoulders.
They had been teaching the baby to speak.
The remaining few weeks passed uneventfully. K0npeito and Star Guarded were digging the first floor of the future Great Hall, Vox Nihili was finishing the palisade, Angry Ed was slowly cooking and preparing all the beak dog parts, Enzer was trying to spar with herself, Pozzo and his party... were Pozzo and his party.
Once again, that left me and Leperfish. I was feeling lonely. I couldn't be angry any more.
“Hey, Leperfish,” I approached as he was finishing the roof of Commatoes' shelter. “I'm not mad at you any more.”
“What?”
“I forgive you everything.”
“What?”
“You don't have to apologize.”
“What?”
“I even forgive you you hurt my feelings and ditched me for a woman.”
“What?”
“Care for a game of checkers?”
“Sure, why not?”
Friends again!