by Rick Johnson
“So, it appears our deal is off,” Red Whale commented.
“Heavens, no,” Death replied with a gruff laugh. “The bargain’s sure and true’s it ever was.”
“Then command those rascals to leave and allow me to reload my half of the gold. We will gladly depart as soon as it’s loaded.”
“Then you are the one breaking our bargain,” Death replied.
“Me?” Red Whale roared. “Me break the bargain? Nay! I have honored my part of the deal.”
“Then all the gold, and the piece of Maggon Dragon’s tail, are mine,” Death said with a smile. “The bargain was that I would return half the gold to you if you were successful in making a deal with the Whale freighters—but, you were not successful.”
“Crinoo! You bilge-bathing, vomitous scoundrel!” Red Whale exploded. “You may be clever, but your trickery only proves that all the blood in your head is fly-swarming dung!”
“I think what it proves is that I win, you lose,” Death replied. “Now be happy that I show you mercy and let you keep your ship and crew. That’s a gift from your friends. We do hope you’ll call at our friendly harbor again someday.”
Red Whale and BorMane exchanged glances. No words were needed. In countless Ship’s Councils during Daring Dream’s voyage, their goal had been reaffirmed time and again. They would find the Outer Rings and return to Lord Farseeker with a full report in the shortest possible time. It was out of the question to wait four months at Slizzer—even if they wanted to!
“Mr. Fishbum,” Red Whale called to his mate waiting at the top of the gangway, “make Daring Dream ready to depart. We leave with the ebb tide.”
“Aye, Capt’n, she’ll be ready.” Fishbum responded.
“Look lively, mates!” Fishbum called out. “See to the rigging and stores!”
In high spirits, the crew gave three cheers to Captain Gumberpott and Daring Dream, and fell to their tasks.
“Where’r you bound?” Death inquired, just as Red Whale turned to board the ship.
“Back the way we came to catch what’s left of the Fair Temps,” Red Whale replied.
“The Fair Temps will be all blowed out for the season,” Death said. “You’ll be sailin’ straight into the path of the Ogress—and speaking as your special, personal friend, only a fool would sail those waters during Ogress season.”
“I prefer the danger I know, to the dangers I don’t,” Red Whale answered. “I’ve weathered many a storm, and prefer the company of a hurricane to friends such as you.”
Returning to the ship, Red Whale directed the preparations to depart. Some hours later, Daring Dream rode the falling tide out of the Crossports Slizzer harbor and set its prow northward to catch the Fair Temps. Riding a fresh breeze across easy seas, the spirits of the crew were high. Fifteen days after leaving Slizzer, the weather began to thicken and the skies turned gray and gloomy. Scudding along at full-sail, Red Whale searched the sky with his practiced weather-eye, suspecting that Daring Dream was heading into a heavy storm.
By the following day it was raining steadily and the seas became ugly. During the night, the rising screech of a gale-force wind combined with the pounding waves to drown out every other sound. The endless torrential rain, mixing with the flying spray from waves breaking across the ship, gave the effect of having no sky whatever above—as if Daring Dream had entered some twilight zone between drowning and drowned.
At the first sign of dangerous weather, Red Whale had ordered every stitch of sail to be taken in, furled and tightly lashed. It made no difference. The crew below decks, waist deep in water, working the pumps, heard nothing of the howling wind shredding the sails like tissue paper and carrying the masts away as if they were twigs.
Daring Dream, as sturdy a ship as was ever built, labored valiantly against the tremendous waves, taking on considerable water, but refusing to admit defeat. For two days and nights the crew bravely and feverishly worked the pumps. Lashed to the pumps to keep them from being tossed away from their posts by the pitching deck, the struggling crew managed to keep the water from rising beyond the bottom deck.
As the storm at last began to diminish, vivid flashes of lightning from the departing rain clouds revealed the fearful reality of the nearly-shattered ship. The heroic efforts of the weary crew had saved her, however, and with only 3 feet, 8 inches of water left in the hold, Red Whale ordered the pumping stopped and all hands to their bunks for an urgently needed rest.
Unable to sleep himself, Red Whale climbed over the wreckage to reach the main deck. Unseen in the darkness, he stepped into a gaping hole that had been opened in the deck. Stumbling forward, his arm slammed into the jagged remains of the mainmast. Stabbing pain momentarily took away his breath. Struggling to his feet and holding his injured arm tightly, Red Whale’s pain-narrowed eyes widened with the happy sight of Fishbum coming toward him.
“Looks desperate, Capt’n, and you look to be the worst of it yourself, sir,” Fishbum said as he reached Red Whale. “Come on with me, sir, you need some rest—let’s take a look at that arm n’ get some sleep.”
“My Mam always told me to work my head more than my seat,” Red Whale replied. “I can’t rest. We are in more danger now than during the storm—our water supply is ruined for sure and our food may be lost as well. We can’t sail or even use the oars because the stores and crates shifted in the storm and the oar-ports are blocked. No, the crew needs a few hours rest, but I must think how to save the ship.”
So There Are Beasts In This Waste!
Red Whale’s considerable bulk, hitting the sea during his escape from the Daring Dream, created a loud SPLOOSH that had not gone unnoticed. Roolo Tigg was a light sleeper in normal times, but the dramatic storm of recent days had left his mind racing, making it nearly impossible to sleep despite his physical exhaustion.
SPLOOSH! “What was that?” Roolo thought to himself, instantly alert. Leaping from his hammock, he made his way quickly among the tightly-packed hammocks of the sleeping crew. Gaining the deck, and looking over every side of the ship, he found no apparent case of “sea-beast overboard.” He was just turning away from the side to return to his hammock, when he noticed that the night watch was not at its duty—Red Whale and Fishbum were gone!
The realization that the Captain and his mate had apparently abandoned their watch made Roolo instantly suspicious. “They must have gone overboard for some reason,” Roolo realized. But what could have caused the rock-solid, trustworthy Captain to abandon his post? Surely, something was desperately wrong!
“What’s up, Mr. Tigg?” Bomper Spits asked. Bomper had wakened when Roolo had collided with his swinging hammock during his movements through the dimly-lit interior of the ship. Hearing Roolo’s steps up toward the deck, the curious Bomper followed.
“Somethin’s gone to worsts,” Roolo replied. “Capt’n and Fishbum are gone—over the side it appears. What’s that about?”
“That would be the problem over there,” Bomper cried, pointing to the swarm of kayaks rapidly approaching the ship, splitting into streams with the obvious intent of encirclement.
“Capt’n saw it comin,” Roolo agreed. “Too many to resist, and they’re on us with complete surprise—we’re taken without a shot, that’s for sure.”
“Yah,” Bomper agreed, “Capt’n and Fishbum went for help, I’d wager. But what can we do—all our mates is asleep—no time to rouse and defend.”
“Follow the Capt’n, as always,” Roolo replied tersely, “over the side, and quick about it.”
So saying, Roolo and Bomper ducked low to avoid notice and scrambled to the far side of the ship, farthest away from the waves of attackers. Grabbing a dangling rope line to the keelboat that bobbed on the waves below, the two beasts skittered down the line into the boat and cast off. Urgently rowing with all the strength they had, the two sea-beasts managed to pull away to such a distance from their ship that, in the semi-darkness, they would not draw attention to themselves. The two beasts listened and watche
d as the attacking Wrackshees encircled, then boarded, Daring Dream, observing their prediction come true: the ship and all the crew taken without any apparent violence.
“Slavers for sure,” Bomper said. “They noticed some easy pickin’s and took a wounded bird.”
“Vast! Crinoo! That be for sure,” Roolo agreed grimly.
“The Capt’n and Fishbum are two smart beasts,” Bomper observed. “They will make it to help, if any beasts can.”
“Aye-Yah!” Roolo replied. “They will deal with the slavers—but we have no way to know where they are or how to help them. We need our own plan. What should we do?”
“The Dream is wrecked,” Bomper said. “The slavers will pick her clean and leave her bones to rot where they are—unless they torch her, which they may not want to do. BorMane says there’s not much of law and order in these parts—Wrackshees, Rummer Boars, and other unwashed baddies everywhere. I’d be doubtin’ that the ones as took our ship want to draw flamin’ attention from their competitors!”
Pausing for a moment, Bomper chuckled, then continued, “I say we go for help of a different kind than the Capt’n’s probably after—and what else will he need beyond hands to help him rescue his crew, why a ship to sail! I say we get help to repair the Daring Dream—a few days will get her seaworthy again. We could work at night so’s to not attract attention—keep the work low and out of sight during the day—then raise the masts and sails in a single night, so’s to show our hand only when we’re ready!”
“Yah!” Roolo agreed. “You direct repairs while I raise a new crew—then we go after our mates with the Dream and carry them off!”
Having agreed to their daring plan, the two sea-beasts wrapped pieces of cloth around the oarlocks to deaden the sound and rowed off into the night. Things began going badly immediately. One of the oarlocks broke off completely, forcing the sea-beasts to paddle the stout boat. The heavy, eight-foot long oars, designed to give maximum power with the leverage provided by oarlocks, were nearly useless as paddles. After struggling for nearly an hour to break the iron-hard wood of the oars, they managed to shorten each oar. The handle of one of the oars completely shattered, however, leaving only the flattened end of the oar and one foot of handle. In such circumstances, paddling was an exhausting enterprise—especially as the wind increased and kicked up larger and larger waves.
The stout-hearted sea-beasts battled the waves and current for several hours before finally succumbing to a bone-tiredness that steadily robbed them of their strength. Giving up the struggle for the time being, Roolo and Bomper slumped in the keelboat and feel asleep. Drifting on the current, the keelboat carried the sea-beasts far down the coast. After several hours of peacefully drifting on the current, the violent pitching and rolling of their boat awakened the sea-beasts. Large waves, driving their boat toward the shore, had turned their craft parallel to the waves, making it roll dangerously.
The sorry state of their oars left Roolo and Bomper ill-prepared to deal with the emergency. “Broadside to the waves, we don’t stand a chance!” Roolo cried. With no way to change that situation, the sea soon proved him correct. Their wildly pitching boat capsized, tossing Roolo and Bomper into the water.
Dodging the keelboat tossing on the waves, the sea-beasts struggled to shore as best they could. Slogging up on a wide sandy beach, the sea-beasts dropped to the sand, panting. Surveying their situation, they noticed they had landed on an extremely wide beach extending most of the way around a small cove.
As they caught their breath, their keelboat was also being tossed toward the beach, and soon they had landed it securely on the sand.
“What now?” Bomper sighed, feeling clueless about what to do.
“Don’t know,” Roolo replied, “don’t rightly know where we are, which makes it hard to know where to go.”
“We were pushed to shore from that direction,” Bomper said, tracing the path that had landed them on the beach. “My guess is that we rode the current down the coast from the same direction.”
“Makes sense to me,” Roolo agreed, “but that still doesn’t tell us what to do now.”
“Well,” Bomper said, grinning sheepishly, “I think we’ve shown that we’re not very good sailors with our current vessel! I’d recommend we try our luck walking for a while.”
Roolo agreed that the prospects of success with their keelboat were not promising. “I say we stick with our original plan to seek help with repairing Dream,” he suggested. “If we find beasts as can help us with that, we may also get help with finding our mates.”
“Let’s pull our boat up on the beach beyond the high-tide line,” Bomper added. “That way, it will be here if we decide we need to come back this way—we don’t know what lies ahead, and we may think that ’ol slug of a boat looks pretty good sometime.” Working hard, they succeeded in pulling the heavy keelboat far across the sand to a point where it was safe from being washed back to sea by the tide. Then, deciding that the best likelihood of finding help was to go inland, they traveled away from the beach along what appeared to be the easiest route upward through the steep, rocky hills rising away from the beach.
Walking all day, Roolo and Bomper noted that the air, which had seemed mild and fresh on the beach, became colder and damper as they ascended higher into the hills. As sunset approached, the sky took on a deep red-orange color as the sun settled behind an increasing veil of clouds. Roolo and Bomper, sea-beasts to the heart, knew practically nothing about traveling on land and even less about sustaining themselves without a ship’s cook. Miserably hungry and thirsty, having taken their last food and water aboard Daring Dream, they halted under the protection of a large solitary pine tree. The protection afforded by the tree against hunger and thirst, however, was limited to the numerous nobby pinecones scattered beneath the tree.
The ravenous sea-beasts were just beginning to consider pounding the pinecones with rocks to try to soften them up a bit, when the faint, but unmistakable, scent of cooking fish wafted past them. Exchanging glances of astonished happiness, Roolo and Bomper ran off in the direction from which the smell seemed to be coming. Coming around a huge boulder, they found a young Cow crouched before a cookfire. The young beast had made camp in a small pocket of sheltered ground. Protected on one side by the boulder and overhung by a rock ledge, the snug little campsite looked very inviting to the troubled sea-beasts. Tired, dirty, and so thirsty they could barely speak, yet somehow this did not dampen their greeting as they approached the Cow rocking on her haunches before the fire.
Almost shouting with joy, Bomper called out a greeting, “Holo! Hey! Look here!”
“Ah, there! So there are beasts in this waste,” the Cow responded, returning the greeting. “Name’s Helga and I’d thought there wasn’t a beast within miles—haven’t seen anyone in two days.” Motioning for her visitors to sit down, she continued, “Sit down. Take a rest. I got some fish I’m happy to share and there’s a spring of fresh water over there.”
“Ancient Ones, be thanked!” Roolo said. “Things are looking better!”
“The water in the spring runs pretty cold,” Helga said. “I’ve got some more fish over there. Go over to the little pool where the spring runs and you’ll see a leather bag held under the water by a rock. The fish are wrapped in corn husks inside—keeps them fresh. Bring them over here and we’ll throw some more fish on the fire. I’ve got plenty.”
It was not far from tears of joy that seemed to cloud the eyes of the sea-beasts as they followed Helga’s instructions. Having nearly given themselves up to enduring a long night of hunger and thirst, watching Helga preparing the fish made them doubly thankful for her open-handed generosity. Hanging the fish over a makeshift spit made from tree branches, Helga cooked enough fish to satisfy everyone’s hunger.
“I’m glad I finally found you,” Helga remarked as she handed around the fried fish and dried cherries that made up her simple meal. “I’ve been calling on the Ancient Ones to help me find you.”
; “You knew we were coming?” Roolo said with surprise, greedily attacking the fish with his fingers.
“No, I didn’t know you were coming,” Helga laughed, “but I am looking for some sea-beasts in trouble—and I seem to have found some!”
Exchanging stories as they chewed and drank their coffee, the three beasts laughed and joked as the night deepened. Finally, the conversation dropped off into broken, fitful comments as the beasts settled into their own tired reflections. All probably would have dropped off to sleep had the wind not begun to pick up. Threatening clouds had been building all evening and now they cut loose with a cold, driving rain. Pushed by the strong wind, even Helga’s protected campsite was not sufficient to provide shelter. Sharp, driving raindrops, nearly cold as ice, pelted the three beasts viciously. Worse, the driving rain soon produced a torrent running down from the rocky hills, flooding the campsite.
“Nothing to do but sleep up on the rocks,” Helga announced, “we won’t stay any drier here than we will out in the rain—might as well try to get out of the flood!”
Taking the lead, Helga climbed up the bare rock like the seasoned mountain dweller she was. Feeling her way along in the dark, she found a fairly broad and flat place to stop safely. Roolo and Bomper followed, scrambling up the rocks. Wishing for a tent, a cave, even a good clump of bushes to break the force of the driving rain, but having nothing by their stout hearts to protect them, they settled down, backs to the rain and heads tucked, to wait for dawn.
Christer’s Plan
Driving rain had pelted the struggling band of travelers since morning. Soaking in through every gap in the heavily-tarred storm-capes they wore, the cold rain added misery to every step Helga and her sea-beast companions took. More than a day of tramping had brought the party no closer than halfway to Dismal Pass, despite their urgent need to reach the sea-beast’s grounded ship. Soaked and exhausted from the difficult climb up the steep, jagged road to Dismal Pass, the struggling band needed to find shelter soon.