Chapter One

Monster Blood Tattoo Book One: Foundling

D M Cornish

For over fifteen centuries skolds had fought the monsters, so Rossamünd had been taught. Indeed, they had made it possible for civilisation to endure. They made and used all sorts of powerful, strange and deadly chemicals to slay monsters or drive them off. They also sold many of these potives and concoctions to everyday folk, allowing them to stand against the monstrous foe as well. Skolds were deeply respected, but they were also thought strange and – it was said – they usually stank of the very chemicals in which they trafficked. Though Rossamünd had seen many, he had never been close enough to confirm this reputation.

“A skold? One of those dark dabblers makin’ all those dangerous smells and vile potions just waitin’ to go boom in yer face? Wanderin’ about, confrontin’ all th’ beasts and nasties out there?” The dormitory master gestured vaguely. “I be thinkin’ not.” He sighed. “Folks needs ’em to keep all manner of nasties away, I grant ye, but a skold will spend their days out in th’ wild countryside where only their cunnin’, their chem’stry and the cut of their proofin’ stand between their next meal and an ’orrible, gashin’ end! I’ve ’ad perils enough in me life and prefer to spend what’s left of it safe in these ’alls, behind th’ city’s many walls. And ye’ll ’ave dangers a-plenty when ye go to serve on a main-ram. A-skoldin’s not for me, lad, or thee either, if ye know what’s right fer ye.”

“Would you rather be a lahzar, then?” Rossamünd ventured, already knowing the answer.

Of strange people, lahzars were thought the strangest. Able to do wonderful, terrible things because of secret surgeries done on their bodies, they too fought monsters. Some even said they were better at this than the skolds. There were two kinds of lahzar: fulgars – who could make sparks and flashes of electricity; and wits – who could twist and squash minds, and sense where monsters and even people were hiding. No one knew exactly whence lahzars had come, but for the last two centuries they had made a profound difference to teratology – the proper term for monster-hunting. Skolds were bizarre, but lahzars could be frightening – almost as frightening as the beasts they fought.

Fransitart squinted and sucked in a breath. “Abash-me, lad, now I’m certain ye’re goadin’ me! To let a butcherin’ surgeon go carvin’ into yer rightly ordered gizzards and guts … What’s the use of it? I’m with th’ skolds – they were doin’ a fine job of th’ killin’ and th’ slayin’ and th’ lordin’over we lesser folks for centuries afore them lahzars came along. Give me a skold over a lahzar on any given day, bless me eyes!”

Nickers and bogles were the names most folk gave to the monsters: nickers for the bigger ones, bogles for the smaller, though this rule wasn’t fixed. Rossamünd closed his eyes as he tried to imagine a lahzar battling with some giant nicker.

The dormitory master sat down on the end of Rossamünd’s sagging cot, rousing him. Fransitart gave the boy a serious look. “I ’ave ’ad to share cabin space with a few lahzars in me time, yer see: both th’ lightnin’-graspin’ fulgar and th’ head-blastin’ wit …”

“You have?” Rossamünd sat up. He had heard many of the dormitory master’s tales, tall and true, but Fransitart had never told him this before. “What were they like, Master Fransitart? Did you see the marks on their faces? Did they fight any monsters?”

“Aye, I ’ave, and aye, their spoors on their foreheads were clear, and aye, they did fight with as many nickers as they found and did many worse things too … and after each meeting I was always mightily glad to be free of their comp’ny.”

Fransitart looked at his feet for a moment. Rossamünd wondered what he was remembering.
“They are strange,” he went on finally, “and th’ unnatural organs within their bodies that make ’em so strong make ’em crotchety, feverish! Many a queer thing I ’ave seen, but nothin’ quite so wretched as a lahzar made sick by ’is organs.” He stared intently at Rossamünd. “My masters, lad, neither thee nor me wants to become one of them. Stick to a vinegaroon’s life – ’tis a good, ’onest way to chance yer fortune.”

“Well then, tell one of your stories,” Rossamünd persisted, his pamphlet forgotten for the moment, “of when you were a sailor upon the seas. Tell me about the Battle of the Mole when you were saved by that white-haired fellow. Or when you fought against the pirate-kings of the Brigandine! Or when you captured that Lentine grand-cargo as a prize!”

“Nay, nay, me boy, ye know ’em mostly already, especially them there second two …” The dormitory master lapsed into silence.

Rossamünd became quiet for a moment too, inspecting an illustration of Harold battling the Slothog on a page of his pamphlet. In the drawing the skold looked as if he was about to be trampled.

Fransitart stood.

The boy looked up at his dormitory master shyly. “Master Fransitart …” he ventured. “Have you ever killed a monster?”

For a moment, Fransitart seemed almost angry at this question and Rossamünd immediately regretted asking it. Old salts like the dormitory master could be very touchy about their past, and it was proper never to ask but always wait to be told.

With the deepest sigh, the saddest sound Rossamünd had ever heard Master Fransitart give, the fury passed. “Aye, lad,” he said hoarsely, “I ’ave.”

A thrill prickled Rossamünd’s scalp.

The old man closed his eyes for a moment, and did something the boy had never seen him do before: he took off his long, wide-collared day coat and laid it neatly on the end of another cot. Fransitart rolled up the voluminous sleeve of his white muslin shirt, exposing much of his pale left arm. He bent down a little to show his gauntly knotted bicep. “Look ye there,” Fransitart growled.

Wide eyes went wider as the boy saw what was shown: made from swirls and curls of red-brown lines was the small, crudely drawn face of some grinning, snarling bogle. A pointed tongue protruded obscenely from a gaping mouth, and its eyes were wide and staring horribly.

A monster-blood tattoo!

People were only ever marked with a monster-blood tattoo if they had fought and slain a nicker. The image of the fallen beast was pricked into the victor’s skin with the dead monster’s own blood. The stuff reacted strangely once under the skin, festered for a time and left its indelible mark. The boy looked agog at his dormitory master. He already had deep respect for the old man, but now he regarded him with an entirely new awe.

“Master Fransitart!” Rossamünd hissed. “You’re a monster-slayer! Most folk would be bursting with pride to bear such a mark. Fransitart just seemed ashamed. “As things be, Rossamünd, th’ creature I killed did nought to deserve such an end and, though me shipmates boasted me an ’ero, it were a cowardly thing I did, and I am sorry for it now.”

Rossamünd’s astonishment grew. How could killing a monster be cowardly?

How was it that Master Fransitart could be ashamed of being a hero?

To kill a monster was a grand thing, almost the grandest thing – everyone knew that. People were good. Monsters were bad. People had to kill monsters in order to live free and remain at peace. To feel sympathy for a bogle or to take pity on a nicker was to be labelled a sedorner – a monster-lover! – a shameful crime that in the least had its perpetrator shunned, or stuck in the pillory for weeks or, worst of all, executed by hanging.

How many secrets did the dormitory master have? Was he a secret sedorner? Rossamünd went pale at the notion.

The more serious Master Fransitart became the quieter his voice. He was almost whispering now.

“Hearken to me, me lad! Not all monsters look like monsters, do ye get me? There are everyday folks who turn out to be th’ worst monsters of ’em all! There’s things I needs to tell ye, Rossamünd – strange things, things that might appear shockin’ on first listenin’, but ye’re goin’ to need to begin to get ye head about ’em …” Something caught his attention. The dormitory master shut his mouth with a sudden click and quickly pulled down his shirt sleeve.