by M. M. Perry
“That is why our people line all our boats with metal plates along the bottom. It is the only thing that stops the hydra from taking the boat down without ever surfacing.”
Gunnarr stopped and looked around. His audience was rapt with attention. He smiled as he continued telling his tale.
“It was the first night watch I’d been assigned on that first voyage of mine. The moon was high, the seas were calm. I was at the rail of the ship, enjoying the breeze on my face. I saw the silvery flashes of fish leaping out of the water in the moonlight. The spray of the sea hit my face and the salt stung my eyes. And then I looked down. In the water, just below the surface, I saw the hundreds of yellow eyes of the hydra looking up at me. The pattern of scales floated just beneath our boat, reflecting the light of the full moon back, shining fiercely under a skim of water. They moved with the same speed as the ship, rising and falling slowly as the hydra moved through the water.
“I knew there was no way I could face such a creature alone. That I had to wake my ship mates. I ran to the center of the deck and rang the bell. Men clambered up from below decks, their faces sleepy. When I told them about the Hydra, they ran to the side to see, but found nothing there. They were angry at first. They told me I had just been sleepy and jumpy, that I was still too green to be left alone on night watch. I hoped they were right. But as they were giving me a scolding, the boat suddenly listed violently to port. We all felt the deck tilt underneath us. We all looked port to see the head of the beast breaking the surface of the water, its huge claws dug into the wood of the port railing.
“I dodged as the head came snapping forward. The ghastly thing took the first mate and tossed him far behind it, far into the sea before grabbing the captain next and crunching him in half, biting out his midsection and letting his arms and legs fall into the sea below. I had a sword on my back, but it was a small blade. I had been practicing with it a great deal, was still unsure of my skill. I knew that I had to attack the beast though, no matter what.
“As it ducked its head again to snatch another sailor I ran to the edge of the boat, but the beast saw me coming for it. It released the boat just as I stepped onto the railing. As the port side shot up, released from the counterweight of the massive hydra, I knew that the only thing left for me to do was jump. As the port side crested, I sprang blade first at it. My blade sunk home and I wrapped my free arm around the fiend’s neck as I crashed into it. The beast submerged back into the sea, taking me with it. Deeper and deeper it sank. My eardrums began to pound with pain from pressure, at least several dozen fathoms of water over my head. And I hadn’t gotten a full breath of air before plunging under the surface. I knew I had only moments to save myself.
“I got the best grip I could, wrapping both my legs around the neck as well. I managed to gouge the thumb of my free hand into one of its eyes and I used that to get a leveraged grip. I pulled its head back and slid my sword across the neck of the beast as I wrenched it free. I felt the head tear loose, severed from the body. I opened my eyes and I was still floating there under the water, my right hand gripped my sword, the left the neck of the hydra, still attached to the head, but the water around me was dark at that depth, and becoming darker as the hydra’s blood bloomed around me. I looked up and could dimly see the ship outlined in the light of the moon high above. My lungs burned for air, and I knew I had only seconds to live. So I dropped both the sword and the head and swam away from them as fast as I could. I climbed through the water, praying to Laota to give me a just a few more seconds.
“When I burst through the water’s skin, I took the deepest breath of air I ever have in all my life and enjoyed it for the split second before I began coughing so violently I had trouble treading water. I was so happy to be alive that when the fit passed I just lay on my back and floated. I didn’t even think about which way my ship lay until a rope landed across my chest. My shipmates pulled me aboard, and we returned home to tell the families of the dead, and give them their last rites” Gunnarr said solemnly.
The people around the fire were silent for a long time. The light from the fire made Gunnarr’s eyes glow. Then the village elder, an ancient looking man, began singing a tune. His soft voice filtered over the crowd, the melody sweet and soothing. Then all the aborigines joined in, some harmonizing. Gunnarr smiled at the sound of it as Callan looked around confused.
“Why are they singing,” he hissed to Cass behind his hand.
“It’s how they celebrate a good story. They add it to their song,” Cass said, listening to the words and smiling.
The singing went on for quite some time and had many verses. The last verse was sung only by the leader. He stood for the last verse, singing as he walked toward Gunnarr. He stepped around Gunnarr as he sung, making a gesture as if he held a sword. His other hand moved through the air, undulating like a wave as he sung. Then the hand came up like a head, and snapped in the air. The children around the fire gasped as the old man swung his imaginary sword. The snapping hand was lowered and the hand with the imaginary sword held high with a few triumphant words. The aborigines all cheered when the song was done, and the old man patted Gunnarr on the arm. Gunnarr got up and walked back over to his fellows as the aborigines began to disperse, heading back up into their trees to crawl into their hammocks.
“What was that then?” Callan asked drowsily.
Inez had fallen asleep on his shoulder and was drooling down his fancy shirt, but he didn’t notice, his mind still fuzzy from drink.
“It is their song of stories,” Cass said standing and looking at Gunnarr with heavy lidded eyes. “It is a remarkable honor if your story is made part of their song. They sing it, or at least parts of it, every night. It is filled with the great deeds of the warriors they’ve met.”
“It was a wonderful story,” Nat said looking up at Gunnarr.
“You will have some of your own to tell soon enough,” Gunnarr said, his voice weary.
Viola stood and stretched. Nat watched her admiringly while taking a long sip of wine from his cup. She walked over to the wagon and roughly lifted Inez up to get at her bedroll beneath. Inez snorted a few times but never woke. Gunnarr took Cass’ hand and pulled her to him roughly. She lurched into him and laughed as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Easy there, big guy. I’d have come if you’d just ask,” she said.
As Viola watched the two of them, her expression soured. She put her bedroll next to the fire and sat down at it, finding herself unable not to look at Cass and Gunnarr. Gunnarr was whispering something in Cass’ ear and she was giggling at whatever he was telling her. Viola finally got into her bedroll and turned away from them to sleep. Nat watched them pull together in an embrace and smiled.
“Oh please go somewhere else to do that,” Callan said pulling a blanket over his shoulder and turning over in the wagon to get comfortable. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
He turned over so fast that Inez’s head slipped off him and thunked onto the bottom of the wagon; her snoring continued uninterrupted. Nat got up and grabbed his own bedroll from the wagon and tried to nonchalantly drop it down near Viola. He settled in to his bed with his head just a few feet away from Viola’s. Gunnarr and Cass managed to help each other up in a messy jumble of limbs, and then stumbled over to a log nearest the fire pit, settling down against it facing the embers, so the bench blocked them from the view of everyone else. Nat could still hear Gunnarr’s deep voice mumbling quietly, and every now and then a small laugh from Cass, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. Viola pulled her blanket over her head.
“Are you very tired then,” Nat asked hesitantly. “I can ask them to… well, be more quiet maybe? I know I get cranky when I’m tired, and hate it when I can’t find a quiet place to just sleep.”
“I’m not cranky,” Viola said from under her blanket.
“Oh,” Nat said. Then he twiddled his thumbs as he asked, “Are you cold? We could… lay next to each other if you’re cold.”<
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“I’m not cold,” Viola said shortly, then she added, “but thank you for thinking of me. I’ll be fine. I’m just jealous is all. It’s stupid really.”
Nat was crushed. He felt like something had hollowed out his chest.
“You like Gunnarr?” he asked quietly, a sad note in his voice.
“What?” Viola said lowering her blanket. “Like Gunnarr? No. That’s not what I’m… Look, never mind. It’s not important, okay? I shouldn’t have said anything. I think I’m still just a little drunk is all.”
Nat smiled, relieved. Before he fell asleep, he managed to move just a bit closer to Viola.
Chapter 9
Gunnarr woke with a grunt and found himself wrapped in Cass’ arms, her head on his chest, and smiled. He could think of very few better ways to wake up, all of them involving less clothing. He could hardly remember the night before—the Spider Walker wine was potent stuff—but the evening must have gone particularly well if he was waking alongside Cass.
As much as he wanted to lay there with her just a little longer, his leg had fallen asleep some time during the night and was tingling intensely now, just on the edge of pain. It demanded he get his circulation going, but he ignored the urge. He wanted to stay put and enjoy the warmth of the good woman lying against him for a few moments longer. The air around him was misty with the early morning dew. The sky was the deep blue color of full morning approaching at the trailing edge of dawn, and the birds’ morning chorus was beginning its crescendo. Gunnarr could make out people in the trees moving around above him.
He felt Cass begin to stir and, with regret, lifted his arm off her so she could get up. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and sat up, smiling when she saw Gunnarr’s handsome face. She touched his cheek gently with her hand, got up and stretched, and then headed over to a small stream that ran through the village.
Gunnarr stood then and shook his leg out to hasten the passing of the numb prickling in his foot. When the worst had passed he did a few squats, trying to get his blood flowing again. He watched Cass during his entire regimen. She was leaning over the stream now, her whole head dunked in it. When she pulled back out of the stream an arc of water flew off her hair. She whooped, exhilarated by the chill of the water.
The noise awoke Callan with a start. He was disoriented at first, unsure of where he was. After a moment, he was able to tell he was in a wagon. Then he noticed the pressure on his chest and looked down to find Inez there, clutching at him around the chest, her wrinkly cheek flattened against him. He pried her hands off of him and forcibly pushed her away. She smacked her lips as she sat up, and then wiped her hand across her mouth and cheek. Callan looked back down at a huge wet spot on his embroidered tunic.
“Aw, Gods.”
Then he caught an unpleasant scent in the air. He sniffed first in Inez direction, then on the spot where she had lain. Finally he sniffed the spot on his tunic and pulled his face away from it horrified.
“Aw, Gods!” he cried again as he tore off his tunic and tossed it aside.
Inez eyed him, one eyebrow raised as she looked at the shirtless king.
“Nope,” she said smacking her lips again, “I certainly wouldn’t throw you out of my bed.”
Callan glared at Inez as he climbed hastily out of the wagon. He moved away as quickly as he could manage in his groggy state. It disturbed him how inappropriately lecherous the woman was, not just for her age, but for anyone. The thought that she might decide to target him for geriatric seduction was better than a bucketful of cold water in the face. It roused him enough to make his way around to the other end of the wagon. He opened a huge trunk that took up one end of the wagon and hastily pulled out a fresh tunic and a large cloth. Callan then alternatively stomped and stumbled off to where Cass and Gunnarr were washing their faces. He knelt down next to them and splashed some water on his face.
“What happened last night? The last thing I remember is eating some meat,” Callan said.
“That’s the Spider Walker wine. It’s strong stuff,” Cass said wringing out her hair.
“Spider…Walker,” Callan said nervously, “it… isn’t made with spiders, is it?”
“No, your highness. They do not eat or drink anything with spiders in it. These people are called the Spider Walkers, remember? Because they walk among the spiders,” Cass said.
“Oh,” Callan said relieved.
Tampoto appeared silently, almost magically as was his way, as they were finishing washing the night’s grime off themselves. He was carrying a small cloth pouch. He said something to Cass briefly, offering her the pouch. Cass took it, bowing a little to him as she did. Tampoto nodded back at her, and then left.
“What was that all about?” Callan asked drying his face.
“A few more fruit for the road. They know our task is urgent, and that we want to get going. They’ve already fed our mounts. Tampoto wanted to thank us for our stories, and to give us his tribe’s blessing before we leave. That we live to have, and tell, many more,” Cass said.
“They aren’t going to lead us out?” Callan asked.
“No, it isn’t necessary. We know the way,” Gunnarr replied, standing.
They gathered their things together and mounted their horses. Nat waved enthusiastically at the Spider Walkers as they approached the edge of the clearing around the village and headed back into the woods.
As they travelled through the woods, Callan resolutely kept his eyes downcast, not wanting to accidentally find himself looking into the face of a giant spider ever again. He munched silently on small, delicate bites of the little fruits the whole way.
The better part of the day had passed before Callan saw the sun breaking through the trees as they thinned out. He was so overjoyed to find himself on the other side of the forest, out of the realm of the giant spiders that he didn’t even bother put the canopy on his saddle.
“You know, if they just called it the Giant Spider Forest, I think that would do the trick. I certainly wouldn’t enter a forest that advertised it was inhabited by those things,” he mused as he tossed the few handfuls of fruit he hadn’t eaten away.
When they did finally break fully out of the forest, they were confronted with another broad river. Cass hopped off of her horse and began prepping their gear for the crossing.
“Is this the Jollia?” Callan asked.
“Yes,” Cass said looking out at the river. “I promise this is the last one we’ll have to cross.”
“So the spider forest’s sandwiched between these two rivers,” Callan said musing.
“Yep. So most people are unlikely to stumble in there on accident,” Cass explained, “and it seems to keep the spiders in.”
Once again they began the tedious process of fording the river. Gunnarr had managed to acquire a new rope from the spider walkers, and this time Barnaby did not bite it in half. Nearly an hour passed before they finished the fording and plunged back into the forest. The trees thinned out considerably as they travelled upriver alongside the Jollia. As the sun sank low in the sky they came to a point in the Jollia where a smaller stream fed into it. There Gunnarr turned the party to follow the branching tributary upstream into the woods.
The ground grew rockier and the path more uneven as they moved away from the Jollia. Callan had been intermittently asking about stopping for the day for more than a half hour yet Gunnarr kept the party moving at a brisk, jarringly relentless pace. When they finally came to the edge of a large pool of water surrounding a small waterfall, Cass brought her mount about and halted the party. A shelf of rock jutted out into the pool in the shape of an arrow point. The pool around it was clean and clear down to its rocky bottom. The rocky shelf created a natural separation splitting the pool into nearly equal parts.
“Alright, I’m calling it. Ladies to the right, gentleman to the left. I know I can’t be the only one who wouldn’t mind a good soak right now,” Cass said.
“A soak? We just dragged our sorry asses out of a river,”
Callan said exhausted.
“Yeah, about six hours ago,” Cass said back, “and, I would really love a chance to bathe. But if you’d rather not, you don’t have to get in. Would it make a difference if I told you the pool here is fed by several hot springs up there,” she gestured up the cliff to the top, several dozen feet in the air, where the small waterfall gurgled off the edge.
It was then that Callan noticed the steam hovering just above the water’s surface. He prodded his horse to trot to the left side of the pool without further comment. Gunnarr and Nat followed him as Inez pointed Barnaby toward the right, Cass hot on her trail. Only Viola hesitated, watching Cass’ retreating back. Cass turned around and looked at Viola, confused.
“You don’t want to bathe?” Cass asked.
“Not especially,” Viola said nervously.
“Okay, well you still ought to come with us. I suspect the men would enjoy some privacy… or maybe they wouldn’t care. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and consider them virtuous for the moment. Come around to the ladies’ side,” Cass said turning back around.
Viola reluctantly prodded her horse to follow. She gripped her reins tightly, her stomach churning nervously. She could hear it over the sound of the waterfall filling the air. Cass and Inez pulled to a stop ahead of her near a shallower part of the pool. Inez scrambled out of the wagon and walked over to the water, lifting her long ratty skirt as she stepped in without hesitation.
“My feet deserve this,” she sighed. She flexed her toes a few times before plopping down at the side of the pool of water. The water was so soothingly warm she didn’t even mind the wetness seeping into her skirt from the damp ground.
Viola looked around, hoping she could come up with some plausible excuse to get away from Cass for a little while. She couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t possibly be misinterpreted somehow. She sat on a rock, miserably casting about for anything to get her out of there. She didn’t notice, so deep in thought, that she had let her eyes wander until her gaze went unerringly to the tall warrior woman, like iron to a magnet. Cass was almost completely undressed now.