Excerpt: The Guard of Somnium

Mobani opened his eyes slowly. His surroundings swam in and out of focus until, gradually, they began to distinguish themselves. Flat, grey flagstone floors; rough walls, the bricks darkened by age and dirt. Iron bars to his right.

Mobani groaned, lifting a hand to his aching head. He was in a prison – and that was not all of it, for his fingers had touched on a bandage wrapped around his head. He remembered the agonising blow on the battlefield and concluded, judging by the blood that had dried and stiffened the material, that it was not good news for his eye.

“You’ve been out for a few ours,” said a voice, “but they fixed you up.”

With an effort, Mobani dragged himself fully into consciousness to focus on the speaker. He was a young wolf, sat on the other side of the cell from Mobani, and the lynx recognised him as a Private in one of the other patrols.

“They packed the eye socket with cotton,” the Private continued, as Mobani let his hand fall from the bandage. The wolf seemed almost excited to be able to explain all this to the lynx. “And they wrapped that over it to stop it falling out. You woke up in the middle of it, screaming blue murder in I don’t know what language, so they had to knock you out again. They thought you were putting a curse on them or something. But I don’t suppose you remember that, do you?”

Mobani shook his head – slowly, since his brain still felt fuzzy: as though a
particularly nasty headache was lurking just beneath the surface.

“I feel like I’ve drunk an entire hogshead of whiskey,” he muttered.

The Private grinned – not an entirely appropriate expression considering their situation, Mobani thought. But he was too groggy to bother remonstrating.

“I heard you liked a drink,” the Private said cheerfully, and Mobani shot him a dark look that proved to have a worse effect on him rather than on the over-talkative wolf. He didn’t get a chance to show his irritation further, for at that moment the cell door opened with a clang and two lizards stood in the doorway.

Scalies! Mobani’s fur bristled in an instant, and he drew his muzzle into a closed mouth snarl. He could only half see them, as he did not dare move his head too much for fear of passing out; and the lack of two functioning eyes played an irritating role as well. This was going to be a pain to get used to, he considered moodily.

One of the lizards, who appeared from his uniform to be of a higher rank than the other, was saying something to the two captured guards. Mobani could make no sense of it, and neither, apparently, could the wolf. Mobani felt a twisted sense of amusement to see that the Private’s inappropriate cheer had finally been quelled.

The lizard was gesturing wildly, and though he raised his voice Mobani still had no idea what was being said. Then the second lizard made over to the cowering Private and hauled him to his feet, and for the first time Mobani noticed that the wolf was chained. After minimal examination, he realised that he was as well.

“Where are you taking him?” he asked, as the lizard came past with the wolf in tow. The Dracotian glared at him and snarled something as he passed by, so Mobani – because that was the kind of beast he was – hissed a curse in return. At this the first lizard leapt forward, shouted at the wounded Corporal, and seized him by the arm. Mobani began to shout various grievances in return, but the lizard lifted him so quickly that the lynx’s head swam in a most unpleasant way, and before he had a chance to say anything else he had passed out into a dead faint.