_
The ride's a little bumpy on the famous Road of
Skulls
'My God, what's happening!' Sammil Mc9 cried,
waking up.
The cart he and his companion had hitched a ride
on was shaking violently.
Mc9 put his grubby hands on the plank of rotten
wood which formed one of the cart's sides and
looked down at the legendary Road, wondering
what had caused the cart's previously merely
uncomfortable rattling to become a series of bone-
jarring crashes.He expected to discover that they
had lost a wheel, or that the snooze-prone carter
had let the vehicle wander right off the Road into a
boulder-field, but he saw neither of these things.He
stared, goggle-eyed, at the Road surface for a
moment, then collapsed back inside the cart.
'Golly,' he said to himself, 'I didn't know the
Empire ever had enemies with heads that
big.Retribution from beyond the grave, that's what
this is.' He looked forward; the cart's senile driver
was still asleep, despite the vehicle's frenzied
bouncing.Beyond him, the lop-eared old quadruped
between the shafts was having some difficulty
finding its footing on the oversized skulls forming
that part of the Road, which led Mc9 let his eyes
follow the thin white line into the distance to the
City.
It lay on the horizon of the moor, a shimmering
blur.Most of the fabled megalopolis was still
below the horizon, but its sharp, glittering towers
were unmistakable, even through the blue and
shifting haze.Mc9 grinned as he saw it, then
watched the silent, struggling horse-thing as it
clopped and skidded its way along the Road; it
was sweating heavily, and beset by a small cloud
of flies buzzing around its ear-flapping head like
bothersome electrons around some reluctant
nucleus.
The old carter woke up and lashed inaccurately at
the nag between the shafts, then nodded back into
his slumber.Mc9 looked away and gazed out over
the moor.
Usually the moor was a cold and desolate place,
wrapped in wind and rain, but today it was
blisteringly hot; the air reeked of marsh gases and
the heath was sprinkled with tiny bright
flowers.Mc9 sank back into the straw again,
scratching and squirming as the cart bucked and
heaved about him.He tried shifting the bundles of
straw and the heaps of dried dung into more
comfortable configurations, but failed.He was just
thinking that the journey would seem very long, and
be uncomfortable indeed if this outrageous
juddering went on, when the crashes died away
and the cart went back to its more normal rattling
and squeaking. 'Thank goodness they didn't hold
out too long,' Mc9 muttered to himself, and lay
down again, closing his eyes.
he was driving a haycart down a leafy lane.Birds
were chirping, the wine was cool, money weighed
in his pocket
He wasn't quite asleep when his companion -
whose name, despite their long association, Mc9
had never bothered to find out - surfaced from
beneath the straw and dung beside him and said,
'Retribution?'
'Eh?What?' Mc9 said, startled.
'What retribution?'
'Oh,' Mc9 said, rubbing his face and grimacing as
he squinted at the sun, high in the blue-green sky.
'The retribution inflicted upon us as Subjects of the
Reign, by the deceased Enemies of the Beloved
Empire.'
The small companion, whose spectacular
grubbiness was only partially obscured by a
covering of debatably less filthy straw, blinked
furiously and shook his head. 'No me mean, what
retribution mean?'
'I just told you,' Mc9 complained. 'Getting back at
somebody.'
'Oh,' said the companion, and sat mulling this over
while Mc9 drifted off to sleep again.
there were three young milkmaids walking ahead
of his haycart; he drew level and they accepted a
ride.He reached down to
His companion dug him in the ribs. 'Like when me
take too many bedclothes and you kick I out of bed,
or me drink your wine and you make I drink three
guts of laxative beer, or when you pregnanted that
governor's daughter and him set the Strategic Debt
Collectors on you, or someplace doesn't pay all its
taxes and Its Majesty orders the first born of every
family have their Birth Certificates endorsed, or?'
Mc9, who was well used to his companion
employing the verbal equivalent of a
Reconnaissance By Fire, held up one hand to stem
this flood of examples.His companion continued
mumbling away despite the hand over his
mouth.Finally the mumbling stopped.
'Yes,' Mc9 told him. 'That's right.' He took his hand
away.
'Or is it like when -?'
'Hey,' Mc9 said brightly. 'How about I tell you a
story?'
'Oh, a story,' beamed his companion, clutching at Mc9's sleeve in anticipation. 'A story would be'
his grimy features contorted like a drying mudflat
as he struggled to find a suitable adjective. ' Nice.'
'OK.Let go my sleeve and pass me the wine to wet