The Hickory Staff

by Rob Scott

  ‘No.’ Mark didn’t appear surprised. ‘Not a word since he warned us the spirits were coming down the hill.’

  ‘I wonder if he’ll be back.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Mark replied. ‘He’s saved my neck twice now – and he gave us the heads-up about Sallax.’ He glanced over at Brynne and asked, ‘Any sign of him yesterday?’

  Again Steven shook his head. ‘I don’t know if he made it far enough downriver to avoid the wraiths.’

  ‘Let’s hope,’ Mark said. ‘He’s got a score to settle with Nerak, if he can just get beyond the guilt. Imagine working for your greatest enemy all that time.’

  ‘Nerak has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘You realise he might kill us all.’

  ‘Maybe not. If we can get to Praga, we might be able to find Gilmour’s—’

  ‘Kantu,’ Mark interrupted. ‘The other Larion guy. He can help us, but how will we know who he is, or where to find him?’

  ‘I don’t have a clue.’ Steven gave his friend a hopeful look. ‘Let’s get there first.’

  By the end of the day, two more levels had been added to the base. The final step was completed standing calf-deep in the frigid water, and Mark was glad they’d had the foresight to cut enough logs to build upper levels on the raft. ‘At least this way we might stay a bit drier,’ he commented with a shiver. ‘With only one layer of logs, we’d be soaking wet from the moment we started out.’

  ‘And by running the inner section at right angles to the lower and upper decks, we’ll hopefully cut down on water splashing up between the logs as well,’ Steven explained. ‘I’m not just a pretty face, you know!’

  Garec and Brynne grinned at the unfamiliar expression, but Mark groaned as Steven started to explain the engineering principles he’d used. Steven was missing his weekly mathematics challenges; now he wondered what other engineering problems he might be able to solve using his maths knowledge as they navigated their way along the next leg of their journey.

  With the last length of the trapper’s rope, Garec tied short loops at each corner of the square-bottomed vessel and two larger loops at its centre. ‘Handholds.’ He smiled at Brynne as she looked at him questioningly. ‘We don’t want anyone falling in.’

  ‘Make mine especially tight,’ she ordered, smiling back at him.

  It warmed Garec’s heart to see Brynne’s smile. She was desperately worried about Sallax, and it was hard to believe her brother could have survived the army of murderous wraiths scouring the foothills for them two days earlier.

  Without thinking, the young man added in a whisper, ‘He’s tough, Brynne, the toughest person I know. He found a way to make it through alive; I know he did.’ Garec’s heart sank as he watched Brynne’s smile fade.

  ‘He’s scared, Garec – scared, and suffering unbearable guilt. It’s not his fault. We have to find him.’

  ‘We will, I promise.’

  Steven, unaware of their conversation, broke in by abruptly tossing the raft’s anchor line to Garec. He was in contagiously good spirits as he looked over their collective handiwork. ‘Tie this off to that tree. We don’t want her floating away overnight.’

  Garec moved to fasten the line to a low-hanging branch.

  Steven stood beside Mark as the last of their daylight faded behind the Blackstones to the west, limning everything in dim orange. Their raft looked a little like a proper boat that had struggled for a lifetime to mask a disability, and then simply given up. But Steven loved it. It was something tangible, it represented existential evidence, proof of their lives and their continued free will, and he beamed as he wrapped an arm around Mark’s shoulder and asked, ‘Well, what shall we call her?’

  ‘This crooked, not-entirely-seaworthy raft?’ Mark teased.

  ‘Nope,’ Steven declared, ‘that’s not her. And it’s too long to paint along her bow.’

  ‘Does she have a bow?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody negative; this fine vessel – this sturdy craft—’ Steven emphasised the words as he gestured towards the floating wooden barge, ‘—this transport of delight will take us in style and safety all the way to Orindale, in a tenth of the time it would take for us to walk.’

  For a moment the two men were back drinking beer and joking over fast food in the front room of 147 Tenth Street. Mark felt them fall quickly back into stride, back into the comforting, rhythmic banter that had been a staple of their lives back home.

  ‘How about the Capina Fair?’ Garec asked, joining the fray.

  ‘Your girlfriend?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Former girlfriend,’ Brynne answered for him. ‘It ended messy.’

  ‘Ah,’ Steven said. ‘So you miss her?’

  ‘No,’ Garec replied matter-of-factly, ‘it’s just that this vessel – this fine vessel,’ he mocked, ‘looks a bit like her. That’s all.’

  Brynne laughed out loud. ‘It certainly has the same sturdy foundation down below.’

  Even in the dying light, they all could see Garec turn a deep shade of red.

  ‘A wide-hipped woman?’ said Mark, ‘nothing wrong with that, Garec. I’m sure she never blew over in a windstorm.’

  Now Garec laughed as well. ‘You’re right, and I hope we can ask as much from this raft as we head downstream.’

  Steven stood tall and dramatically placed one hand over his heart. ‘The Capina Fair it is.’

  ‘The Capina Fair,’ they echoed in unison.

  ‘Now my friends, to dinner,’ Steven gestured towards the cabin, ‘because apart from his skill at dispatching enraged spirits bent on our destruction, our friend Garec is a virtuoso fisherman with a longbow.’

  Progress on the Capina Fair was slower than Steven had expected. The first day he and Mark estimated they had travelled about six miles, less than the distance they could have covered on foot. That night Garec cut and stripped three sturdy saplings, poles for them to help move the raft along more quickly; Steven would use his own hickory staff.

  Although their progress improved a little, they were still not making headway towards Orindale with any alacrity. The Capina Fair was a clumsy vessel, clunking over rocks and getting hung up on fallen trees, and they spent an inordinately long time wrestling her free from obstacles. But Steven believed the river would widen and deepen as they moved north of the foothills; despite their daily challenge to keep moving, he was convinced easier passage lay ahead.

  In an effort to keep them all lighthearted, Garec reminisced about the raft’s namesake: a strong-willed, stubborn woman with whom he had fought almost daily.

  ‘I can’t imagine why you never settled down with that girl, Garec,’ Brynne teased. ‘She sounds perfect for you.’

  ‘I thought about it,’ he replied dryly, ‘but if I’m going to spend my life with someone, I would prefer it to be someone who never makes me consider ending my life.’

  They all laughed, and Brynne splashed him playfully with a handful of the icy water. The foothills were slowly flattening to meet the Falkan plains; everyone was glad to watch the Blackstone Mountains fall behind.

  They fell into a rhythm, taking turns to stand on the front corners of the raft’s upper level and call out obstacles and poling directions. Garec kept a ready bow and a quick eye open: he felled a large deer just after sunset on their third day out. Fresh venison was a welcome change from their steady diet of fish, and the last of the trapper’s wine complemented the meat well. At night, they moored the raft to a tree trunk and slept on board.

  Despite the clumsiness of their rudimentary vessel, travel along the river was easier and safer than trying to fight their way north through the forest. Steven’s engineering plan had worked and water rarely splashed up between the Capina Fair’s floorboards. They took advantage of the long days raftbound to clean and rewrap wounds, to massage sprained muscles, organise supplies and, especially, to discuss their plans for finding Sallax and getting to Praga and tracking down Kantu. For the first time since they had arrived so precipitously in Elda
rn, Mark and Steven felt properly rested.

  They also used the time to mourn. Six of their colleagues had been killed or lost since the battle at Riverend Palace, but commemorating those deaths had been a luxury they could not afford. Now, as the river ran slowly towards Orindale and the sun shone down, the Ronans had the opportunity to remember the lives and loves they had left behind. The sun warmed their backs and comforted their souls as Brynne and Garec cried for Namont, Mika and Jerond, for Gilmour’s passing, Versen’s disappearance, and for Sallax’s fall from grace. They comforted one another and renewed their vows to see the journey through to its end.

  Steven was worried for Hannah, and although the journey was going well, it did little to boost his sagging spirits. Sitting alone one afternoon as the current carried the Capina Fair around a wide bend in the river, he looked closely at his reflection in the water. Gaunt, bearded and brooding, he almost didn’t recognise himself. He was overcome by the desire to recapture some of that ignorant innocence he had enjoyed when he was nothing more than a small-town assistant bank manager. He grimaced: that wasn’t going to happen – but at least he could do something about his appearance. He still wore his tattered tweed jacket pulled over the tunic he had stolen back in Estrad, and his jeans were filthy. His hair was long and matted, and his cheeks had sunken somewhat since food became a daily struggle.

  ‘I am a mess,’ he commented to no one.

  ‘Well, you were never much to look at anyway,’ Mark responded dryly.

  Steven jumped. ‘Bastard. I didn’t see you there. Give me your knife, will you?’

  ‘You have a knife.’

  ‘Yours is sharper.’

  Mark handed Steven the hunting knife. ‘Careful where you point that thing. Just having it is a felony in New Jersey.’

  Accepting the blade, Steven looked at it for a moment, wondering how to do this so he didn’t make matters worse. He shrugged – that wouldn’t be possible – and grabbed a fistful of hair, slashing it carefully in as straight a line as he could manage. ‘There,’ he said and tossed the stringy remains into the current, ‘that’s a good start.’

  ‘Yikes,’ Mark exclaimed, ‘that was quick!’

  ‘Now for a shave.’

  It wasn’t long before Steven was looking much more like he had on his arrival in Eldarn. Stripping to his boxers, he washed his clothes in the river and laid them out on deck to dry, then took the tweed jacket, beat it against one of the logs like a carpet and used a dampened cloth to scrub it as clean as it would get.

  Seeing what a difference these ablutions were making, Mark followed Steven’s lead and shaved his beard as well.

  Running a hand over the smooth skin of his jaw, he admitted, ‘That feels better. Of course, I prefer a bit of hot lather and some aftershave, but given the circumstances, a razor-sharp hunting knife doesn’t do too badly.’

  Steven considered his reflection in the water again. ‘I needed that. I’m not sure why, but I needed to feel like we might some day be able to go back.’

  Mark was serious. ‘But you don’t want to go back.’

  ‘Not yet, no. But some day we have to. Some day we will. I need to know we can.’

  ‘I hate to be the one to tell you this, but a shave and some clean clothes are not enough to make the transition back. This place has changed you – us – for ever.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but this was something, right? This must count for something.’

  ‘You need to find Hannah.’

  ‘I do, and I need this sodding raft to move faster.’ He punctuated his frustration with a hard slap on the river’s surface. In response, the icy water splashed up and doused him thoroughly.

  ‘Now you’ve done it! You’re soaking wet, pissed off, and floating along an uncharted river in your underwear. I can’t imagine any woman, never mind Hannah, ever falling for anyone else.’ He turned to Brynne, who was sitting watching the exchange. ‘What do you think, Brynne?’

  ‘All women go for that pitiful, wet-puppy look. Makes me want to take him home and warm him up a bit.’

  ‘You see?’ Mark poked fun, ‘my own girlfriend, and right in front of me as well. Before I know it she’ll be suggesting a threesome.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Steven smiled. ‘Enough out of you.’ Standing up, he stretched, then dived headfirst into the river. Surfacing nearby, he screamed, ‘Mother of all things unholy!’

  Garec called, ‘Steven, come back aboard. You’ll catch a deadly cold. Remember, if we lose you, we’ll have to entrust that stick of yours to Mark or Brynne – so come out quickly, before all Eldarn is lost.’

  Brynne cuffed him hard on the side of his head.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Steven called, ‘I’ll swim along for a while. It’s not so bad once you’re in.’

  Mark continued poling the Capina Fair downstream while Steven swam vigorously alongside. The exercise felt good, and he revelled in the familiarity of a hard workout. Passing the raft, he swam ahead, pushed along by the current.

  He decided to wait for the others before swimming on. Treading water, Steven drew a deep breath, then submerged. Kicking towards the bottom, he could make out smooth stones, ancient, disintegrating trees, and large rocks in myriad formations dotting the sandy brown bottom. It was a new world to explore, a gloomy world half in and half out of light, a world of angry amalgams of rocks, dirt and branches, a forlorn universe trapped in silence and devoid of colour.

  He swam towards an underground mass of boulders and trees, a behemoth creation, but his lungs began to burn so he resurfaced for another breath.

  ‘There he is,’ he heard Brynne say, her voice bouncing thinly along the surface. The Capina Fair was closer now. Steven waved at them, then dived back for another visit to the bottom.

  Kneeling once again before the stone formation, Steven watched hundreds of strangely shaped fish darting back and forth between its nooks and cavities. He ran his hands along the riverbed, disturbing a cloud of mud which swirled up momentarily and blocked his view. As it cleared, he saw something, and narrowed his eyes, trying to see more clearly. Then it was there again, coming slowly into focus as the current carried the silty cloud away. Still kneeling, Steven found his hope renewed and, suddenly confident, he kicked back towards the surface and the broken beams of refracted sunlight.

  Panic struck almost immediately. Something was holding him down.

  ‘He’s been under there a long time.’ Garec tried not to sound nervous as he clambered to his feet for a better view. He scanned the river’s surface, looking for bubbles or other disruptions that might indicate Steven’s whereabouts. Leaves, several small branches and a rotten log floated by silently, en route to the Ravenian Sea. Garec noted trees growing on the far banks were reflected in hazy green, gold, and brown, a forest palette, blurry along the river’s edge.

  ‘He’s a good athlete,’ Mark said. ‘I coach swimming, and I wish I had his lungs.’

  ‘Still.’ Garec’s voice was flat as he squinted against the sun’s glare. ‘I don’t like this. It feels wrong.’

  Mark found himself poling more quickly. The bowman’s anxiety was somehow contagious, and he too began scanning the river for some sign that Steven might be in trouble.

  Then he spied it: a small circular area of water, bubbling up as if disturbed from below. Mark recognised in a heartbeat that his friend was in danger. ‘There,’ he pointed, and pushed the Capina Fair hard towards the centre of the current, ‘out in that deeper water. Do you see it?’

  Garec was already pulling off his boots. He stripped to the waist and dived into the ripples, quickly disappearing beneath the surface.

  Mark reached for the hickory staff. ‘Try to keep us from moving too far downstream,’ he said to Brynne as he leaped in after Garec.

  Steven thrashed violently against the invisible force holding him to the riverbed. It had his leg, the same leg the grettan had nearly bitten off, the one that had been healed during his encounter with Malagon’s spirit army. The formless c
reature’s grip was like iron and Steven’s attempts to free himself were in vain. He grasped his ankle with both hands and tugged wildly; his lungs burned with the need for air. He exhaled hard, puffing his breath towards the surface in the hope of attracting Mark’s attention. He didn’t have much time.

  A third hand gripped his leg. It was Garec. Steven’s heart slammed away in his chest as Garec tried to extricate his foot from the river’s vice-like grip. Steven thought his eyes were fooling him when he watched in horror as Garec’s own hand was drawn wrist deep into the silt as well.

  They were both trapped.

  Garec struggled to free himself. Kicking hard and jerking his arm wildly, he inadvertently brought one leg around and struck Steven violently across the bridge of his nose. A bright light flashed before Steven’s eyes, and it took the last of his strength to keep from drawing his lungs full of water. His thoughts scattered, myriad fragments: he might be fighting for his life, or he may have given up already – his sense of himself drifted away in the current. He realised, without caring, that he was about to die – had died – when he felt something forced into his hand.

  The staff’s magic flared, a wellspring of anger, determination and compassion. Steven was suddenly lucid, acutely aware, and strangely free from his mortal need for oxygen. He reached for Garec and, as he had done back at the cabin, used the staff’s power for another, channelling his own magic-imbued strength to the Ronan. Moments later, Garec quieted beside him, protected from drowning by the staff’s strange ability.

  Steven squeezed his friend’s hand and Garec returned his grip, as if to communicate that he, too, was somehow free from the need to breathe. Then Garec deliberately dropped Steven’s hand and reached up to pat him forcefully on the back. Good, Steven thought, he is protected. Now, to get us out of here; it’s way too cold to hang about.