by A. C. Cobble
Glancing down at Sam’s designs and his sickness pooled on top of them, he asked, “Is that bad?”
“I-I… I don’t know,” she stammered. She turned, looking behind them, and shouted, “Samuels, get up here with a bucket! Wash this deck off!”
“Right now?” cried the sailor from where he was crouched down near the gunwale, not trusted to tend to the sails in such violent weather but not allowed to hide below, either.
“Now!” shouted Oliver and Sam as one.
The recalcitrant sailor stumbled up the ladder, a bucket of water in one hand. Half of it spilled by the time he made it to Sam, but he dutifully dumped it on the mess in front of her.
“More,” she shrieked. “Now!”
Samuels shuffled off, one hand gripping the wooden railings, the other his bucket.
Oliver and Sam stared at each other, mouths agape. Ca-Mi-He’s symbol painted in her blood. What had she done?
Samuels returned along with another sailor, and both of them splashed buckets onto the deck, washing his sickness and Sam’s blood away.
Moments later, the rocking and crushing wind subsided, and rain began to fall. The world was blanketed in a steel gray sheet of water, but it felt like natural rain, coming straight down from above. The howling winds faded, though the lightning still crackled behind them.
Oliver stood, stooping to help Sam to her feet as well. The rain, increasing in tempo, doused both of them from head to toe. He swept a lock of sodden hair back from his face and asked, “Are we through?”
Shaking her head, looking around, Sam said, “I think we are.”
Overhearing them from the stairs, Mister Samuels shouted to the crew, “We’re through! We made it!”
Oliver did not look back to watch the men cheer with relief. Yes, they were through the curtain of storm clouds, but their journey had just begun.
“I suppose that’s the last airship that tried to visit the Darklands,” mused Oliver, looking down at the shattered wreck on the rocks below.
“Barely made it to shore,” remarked Captain Ainsley.
Broken timbers, canvass near rotted from exposure, and scattered brass cannon marked where the airship had fallen just fifty yards inland. It had hit hard and shattered on impact. Certainly no one had survived, but Oliver couldn’t spot any bodies. Maybe over the years they’d been dragged away by scavengers.
Evidently guessing what he was thinking, Sam said, “They were dead before they landed. Back in the storm… the shroud is thin. Spirits from the underworld almost broke through. They would have dragged all of us back to the other side with them. They might have taken the life spirits imbued within the stones as well, which could explain why that airship had such a violent landing.”
“It’s a good thing we had you,” said Oliver. He frowned. “The cannon is still down there. Even after a hard fall, those barrels may be intact. Why would no one have looted the wreck? Do you think it’s possible they didn’t know about it?”
Sam and Ainsley had no response.
“That stuff would sell well in the Southlands markets,” added Oliver. “A full complement of Enhoverian cannon would be worth more than most merchants could earn in several years.”
“Aye, and if they didn’t want to sell it, they could have used it,” said Ainsley.
“That wreck below is not the last airship to enter the Darklands,” mentioned Sam.
She pointed ahead of them. In the distance, Franklin’s Luck sailed on calmly, still tacking due south.
“Doesn’t look like they slowed at all coming through that storm,” remarked Captain Ainsley. “I hate to say it, m’lord, but we can’t catch them like this. Torn sail, light on water, the rigging is a mess. We’re not catching anyone until we’ve had a chance to conduct repairs, and m’lord, we’re not going home just yet, either.”
Oliver a stole a glance behind them where the thick band of storm clouds clung a quarter league offshore. Ainsley was right. They wouldn’t survive another passage through that without repairs. They were stuck in the Darklands with no way home, and their quarry was moving out of sight.
“According to the maps, there’s a river west of here,” he said. “Let’s find it. We can restock our water tanks, try to obtain food if we can locate a village, and take time for repairs. No parties disembark without one of the three of us with them. No one but us speaks to any locals. No one shoots a firearm or swings a blade unless there’s an explicit threat to their life. We’re over foreign soil, and while we have no quarrel with the Darklands, I don’t know how they’ll react to seeing us. Let the crew know, if they decide to use violence, it could be tantamount to declaring war with a sovereign nation. If they attack when it’s not absolutely necessary, they’re better off running away than trying to get back on this airship.”
“I’ll call a meeting,” said Ainsley.
“Captain,” said Oliver, “no grog until we’ve no longer got the Darklands beneath our keel.”
A shimmering band of slow-moving water spread in front of them like a tiny sea. Oliver could see it coming from the south, flowing north and piercing the far horizon. Where they were approaching the river, it spread a league wide. Farther north, toward the sea, it grew even wider, expanding into a huge delta. Small islands, sand bars, and bunches of tough grass and water plants sprouted irregularly from the temporary islands in the center of the channel.
Along the banks of the river, they spotted the only signs of life they’d so far encountered in the Darklands. The nation evidently had none of the small villages and hamlets that dotted Enhover’s coast. There was nothing at all along the barren shore except scattered rock and abandoned hovels. Oliver supposed the storm wall made fishing the sea impossible. Instead, in the Darklands, life concentrated beside the river.
Verdant fields grew in the river’s flood plain in an irregular patchwork where farmers had tilled and planted the land. They were linked to the river with rudimentary irrigation systems, looking to be no more than shallow canals painstakingly dug across the dry soil. In between the fields, it was the same brown expanse they’d been sailing over. The difference was that near the river, the soil was darker, fertile.
On the river, they could see the occasional boat trawling the sluggish brown waters with fishing nets trailing behind or loaded with bales of goods traveling up or down to some market. Docks jutted into the river like grasping fingers, and Oliver spotted several low-slung, dung-colored villages. Each village was dominated by a domed structure that was surrounded by a score or two of wattle and daub homes. Some of the places had open markets. Others had long, narrow buildings that he couldn’t determine the purpose of. There were few distinguishing features to tell between any of them.
The construction looked easy to build and easy to maintain. The thick walls were probably also natural insulators, which would help in the brutal summers of the place. He speculated whether the people along the river were partially nomadic, moving along the river as the flood stages changed. And it did flood, he assessed. Presumably a seasonal deluge, but he could see half-a-league inland where banks had formed amidst the arid landscape. All of the agriculture was located within that flood plain. He said as much to Sam, but she’d looked back at him like he was speaking in ancient Darklands.
“You ready, m’lord?” asked Captain Ainsley.
He shrugged. “As much as I can be. Any of these villages look as promising as any other.”
The airship dropped slowly.
Oliver and the crew clung to the gunwales, looking down at the village, watching the buildings, the scrub, and the fields around it, and waiting for someone to appear. Instead, it seemed as if the place was abandoned, though there were animals in pens that spoke the lie to that. The people who lived there must have gone into hiding.
“Bring us down to a dozen paces above the ground,” Ainsley called to Pettybone.
Nodding, the first mate relayed instructions down the open stairwell that led into the hold of the airship. A crank was
turned, and water splashed down on the levitating stones that kept them aloft. The air spirits imbued within the stones retreated deeper into the rock, and the airship descended. Moving slowly and carefully so close to the earth, the crew expertly lowered the vessel until Oliver, Sam, Captain Ainsley, and a trio of sailors went over the side on thick ropes.
Behind them, on the other side of the vessel, another group of crewmen dropped down with a heavy canvass hose. They would stretch it to the river and use a manual pump to pull water from the river onto the airship. While the crew worked, Oliver led his party slowly toward the village.
His hand gripped his broadsword. Beside him, Sam had one hand on a kris dagger, the other tucked behind her back. Ainsley had drawn both of her pistols, though after his admonishment, she no longer pointed them toward the village. The other three members of the group were armed with blunderbusses and cutlasses.
If there was any threat, they would scatter shot at the locals, and all of them would retreat back to the airship. The Cloud Serpent was turned so the aft cannon was facing the village, and three of the deck guns were on pivots where they could be trained on anything that came after the ground party. It was far more firepower than was necessary to subdue such a small, rural village, but in the Darklands, everyone felt it was better to be safe than sorry.
As they reached the outskirts of the village, only a handful of skinny chickens offered any signs of life. The birds moved restlessly, pecking at the dry, dirty pathways between the small mud huts. From somewhere, Oliver heard a goat bleating, but no people appeared to resist their approach or to offer them welcome.
“Ho the village!” he cried.
One of the chickens squawked at them then continued pecking.
“Could they have run away or, ah, all gone out fishing?” wondered Oliver, peering around the village at the empty, wooden dock that thrust into the sediment-laden river.
Sam shrugged. “They probably don’t speak the king’s tongue.”
“We mean no harm!” called Oliver, directing his voice into the village.
“And they’ve probably never seen an airship before,” reminded Ainsley. “Perhaps we scared them all away.”
Oliver turned to Sam. “Do you sense any sorcery?”
She shook her head.
Hesitantly, Oliver walked through an opening in the thin, wooden barricade that surrounded the village. It was head-high, formed of twisted branches as thick as his wrist and bound together by woven grass. The tops of the branches had been sharpened into spikes. He grabbed the barrier as they walked by and shook it, frowning. It would take little effort to hack through the dried grass that had been braided into cords to form the fence, and a charge by a motivated squad of marines could easily trample the flimsy wall.
“For animals?” he guessed.
No one replied. No one knew.
Inside of the village, he peered into one of the two-dozen mud huts, seeing the apparatus of a simple life. A hearth in the corner, a pile of discarded fish bones, a few tools, clothing, some pieces of rudimentary furniture, but no people.
They walked around the village, looking into open huts, seeing that some of them had been recently occupied. Outside each of the huts was a rough sack filled with barley, seeds, wheat, or small purple fruits. The crops that were grown in the area, evidently, but Oliver couldn’t understand why one full bag would be carefully placed outside of each structure. Instead of the sacks, one hut had a freshly slaughtered goat on the doorstep, and two had chickens. Blood from the slaughtered animals still leaked onto the dusty entryways. When Oliver glanced back at Sam and Ainsley, they could only shrug, evidently as confused as he was.
Finally, they circled to a lone door in the exterior of the domed structure at the center of the village. A door of woven reeds was shut, covering the entrance. Unlike the other buildings, this one was fashioned entirely from mud bricks stacked high to make it into a large dome twenty yards across. From its top, he could see a thin streamer of smoke rising before vanishing into the bright day.
Ainsley gripped her pistols and positioned herself behind his left shoulder. One of the crewmen took his right. Reaching out, Oliver shook the door then shoved it open.
Inside, two-score people were arrayed facing a thick wooden pole at the center of the room. Men, women, and a handful of children. They were all on their knees, their heads bowed.
“Hello…” said Oliver.
No one moved.
“Well, this is rather odd,” remarked Ainsley, both of her pistols still held up, pointed at the people kneeling in the room.
They were alive. Oliver could see movement as they breathed, but each person’s eyes were closed, and none moved at the sound of the door opening or at the strange voices.
“This is some sort of temple,” said Sam, leaning past him and glancing around the room. “Look at the walls. They’re covered in pictures and symbols. It’s Darklands script, though these are not completed sentences or thoughts. It’s just discrete words and pictures.”
“Perhaps they’re not literate?” wondered Oliver.
Sam nodded. Then she stepped by him and walked inside.
“Wait!” he hissed.
“If these people meant to harm us, they wouldn’t be crouched like that,” said Sam.
Oliver grunted. He turned to Ainsley and her men. “Step inside and watch our backs. Keep your weapons trained on them. Shout if anyone moves. Don’t shoot unless you have to.”
Nodding, the crew spread out by the door, the barrels of their firearms moving slowly back and forth over the kneeling villagers.
Sam, ignoring the people on the ground, walked around the edge of the room and studied the designs etched into the mud bricks that made the walls.
Nervously, Oliver followed her, his glance skipping over the words and symbols, finding the pictures and trying to make sense of them. There were hundreds, most seeming to depict the struggles of day-to-day life in a rural agricultural community. Sheafs of wheat, the sun, and the river, were all major themes. Interspaced amongst them were depictions of curious, stylized violence such as a man holding another man’s decapitated head. What Oliver thought was a grimalkin was devouring an unfortunate figure that looked like a child. Perhaps that was the explanation for the wall around the village?
There was one picture that showed a lizard-like creature swimming the river behind a boat. Other lizards that were depicted as encircling the village. They would have to be… He swallowed. They would have to be the size of the ones they’d seen in Imbon to do that.
He walked on, seeing more casual violence and what he began to understand were sacrifices. Crude rituals, maybe akin to the sorcerous rites that they’d investigated in Enhover and Archtan Atoll. There were several scenes of large, dangerous-looking animals.
He nearly stumbled into Sam, finding her paused at a scene that was larger than the others. It was directly opposite the doorway and seemed to show a city, but it was floating in the air above a pit of fire. Around the city, more of the massive lizards were curled up like cats, sleeping, or maybe waiting.
“Spirits, what does any of this mean?” wondered Oliver.
Sam pointed up. “Phases of the moon, seasons.”
Oliver blinked, noticing for the first time a row of symbols high above their heads.
“I believe this is a calendar of sorts,” explained Sam. “I think it’s showing when the river is expected to flood, when it’s best to plant seed, when to harvest. Our own farmers back in Enhover follow such seasonal directives. These others, they appear to be calling for… for other activities to be conducted during certain phases. See, here, I think this might be instructions for conducting a sacrifice.”
“A sacrifice, but to what?” asked Oliver.
Sam shook her head, walking the rest of the room, scrutinizing the pictures of violence.
Oliver followed her, focusing on the lizards. There was one that could have been looming outside of the village. In that picture, beside crude dr
awings of huts, were sacks filled with the same goods they’d seen outside.
He frowned, glancing at the silent villagers. Were the sacks an offering to the lizard? Had the villagers thought the airship was… was what, a flying lizard?
He peered closer at the kneeling people and saw on their cheeks, distinct marks. Two or three dashes the length of his fingernail. Children had one or none. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was impossible to ignore the similarity to the face on the sarcophagus they’d found in Imbon. He shook his head, hurrying to walk beside Sam.
“The Cloud Serpent should be topped off on water by now,” called Ainsley from the doorway. “We could use some provisions, though.”
“Take the sacks that are placed outside of each hut,” instructed Oliver. “Take them all, but nothing else.”
“Nothing else?” asked the captain.
“It should be sufficient for a week to ten days,” guessed Oliver. “We can resupply at another location if we need to add more stores. I believe these people left that food as an offering.”
“Why would they do that?” wondered Sam.
“These villagers are not the ones everyone is afraid of,” explained Oliver. “They’re not the ones who frighten off the Southlands merchants or who called that storm wall to guard the coast. They aren’t the ones who first explored the dark path. They didn’t create the uvaan that were hidden away on Imbon, but someone did.”
At the word uvaan, he saw several of the kneeling villagers jerk.
“These people are not walking the dark path,” continued Oliver, “not in the way we’re accustomed to. They’re afraid of someone else, and they must think we are like those people. Perhaps they’re afraid of any outsiders, I don’t know, but I believe they left that food at their doors so that we can take it. It’s an offering to appease us. They’re giving a tithe, or a tax you could say, asking us to take that and nothing else.”
“I think you’re right,” admitted Sam. “These walls are filled with pieces and hints, but none of this is sufficient to perform even a basic ritual. It’s unorganized and illiterate. Someone in this land, though, knows more.”