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finding
nothing, Guta tore the sheets apart. Then he grabbed hold of the mattress and
ripped it open, spilling mouldy old straw and bracken into the night, together
with bedbugs, lice, dead spiders and a virile colony of the kind of red ants
that bite. Then he began to jump on the bed.
            Just before the bed
splintered and gave way, Togura rolled out from underneath and sprinted for the
doorway. He tripped, fell, recovered himself, barked his shins against
something, cracked his head against a low-lying beam, then gained safety. At
least for the moment. Where now? Up, down? Togura ascended, pounding up the
stairs, thinking the fearsome young troll behind him would not dare the
increasingly fragile heights of the Murken Hotel.
            He was wrong.
            Hauling himself back out
through the doorway, Guta started up the stairs after Togura. He began to gain
on him. Togura strove for extra speed. But Guta was fast and ferocious. He
grabbed hold of Togura's foot. Togura screamed. The stairs collapsed. Guta
roared. Screaming and roaring, the two plunged downward to their doom. Guta landed
first, smashing his head open and breaking his back, which killed him. Togura
landed on top of the corpse of his recently deceased rival. A shower of rotten
wood rained down on the two of them.
            Togura became aware of
doors opening. There was a muttering of voices in the darkness. Then the
proprietor came on the scene. The hunchbacked dwarf was bearing a candle, an
evil-smelling stump of black wax which burnt with a greenish-blue light,
filling the air with smoke and shadows. The dwarf was doing his best to
restrain a huge rate, which he had on a short leash. It was the size of a
mastiff, had blood-red eyes and razor-sharp teeth, and was slavering as it
strained against the leash, which was attached to a collar ringed with spikes
of sharpened metal.
            The dwarf surveyed the
damage.
            Then he kicked Guta in
the head.
            "Leave," said
the dwarf.
            The dwarf knew that Guta
was a valuable catch. The city state of Pera Pesh, a fishing town of some one
thousand people down by the coast, had put a price on his head. He was wanted,
dead or alive, for a variety of crimes including grave robbing, necrophilia,
the theft of a small whale and the destruction of a small stone bridge which he
had incautiously walked across. The reward would more than compensate for the
cost of repairs.
            "I'm going right
now," said Togura, with what fraction of his voice he had so far been able
to recover.
            "Togura," said
a loud voice from one of the darkened doorways. "You come here this
instant."
            It was his father, the
formidable baron.
            Togura got to his feet
and fled.

Chapter 5
     
            Togura found refuge in a
fire watcher's hut by a mine shaft. It gave him at least a modicum of shelter
against the cold autumn weather. Exhausted, he slept. He woke, once, to find
something gnawing at his boots. He kicked it away. Hissing and spluttering, it
retreated; after that, he found it hard to get back to sleep again.
            At dawn, the fire
watcher arrived, a big, gruff man with a red beard and bloodshot eyes, and big
dirty boots, one of which had marked Togura's backside by the time he made his
escape. Outside, a light drizzle was falling. Miners, with pick axes and
shovels slung over their shoulders, were trooping to the climbing shafts.
            Shivering, Togura
wandered off, wondering what to do now. He had already considered turning to
Day Suet for help, and had rejected the notion; he was too proud to beg, and,
in any case, doubted that her family would welcome him if he came as a beggar.
            The streets of Keep were
dangerous, as always, for housewives were going through the morning routine of
emptying chamber pots out of the window. Ducking and dodging, Togura escaped
with no