by Angus Watson
“How far was the Popeye territory from The Meadows?” Wulf asked.
“About five hundred miles.”
Wulf looked at Sassa.
“In the end though, it was another tribe that finished us off. Pushed east themselves, they took our land and told us to leave. There were more of them and they were better armed. We left our shelters and headed east. We are the only four that made it across the Shining Mountains. The rest were killed by squatches.” He pointed at the hairy hominid at the back of the Plains Strider. “That’s a squatch, but it must be freakishly weak or have a damaged mind for the Badlanders to catch it. The rest of them are the most awful, evil, powerful … they’re too intelligent to be called animals. They’re monsters.”
Ovets took Sassa’s hands in his and looked bulgingly from her to Wulf. “Please, if the Badlanders let you go or you manage to get away, promise me that you’ll head back eastwards and won’t try to go to The Meadows. If, by some miracle, you get past the squatches in the Shining Mountains, you’ll be killed the day you arrive in the Desert You Don’t Walk Out Of.”
“You don’t need worry about the Desert You Don’t Walk Out Of,” said a Badlander voice.
Sassa looked up. The grinning Chapa Wangwa was standing there, hands on hips.
“Why not?” asked Wulf.
“Because you are all going to die in the Badlands! Ha ha ha!”
Chapter 7
Calnians Do Cross the Water Mother
The Swan Empress Ayanna crossed the Water Mother in her golden swan canoe, paddled by twenty strong men. Two boatloads of drummers and trumpeters followed beating and blaring out a tune to tell the world that one goddess was crossing another.
Her army was arranged on the far bank: ten thousand warriors, plus all the chefs, tailors, weapons makers and all the others needed to march an army several hundred miles across the Ocean of Grass to crush the Badlanders. Every time the boat-borne orchestra reached the end of a phrase, the assembed men and women of her army would shout out a great “Hoo!”
Calnians didn’t cross the Water Mother, so the saying went, but if one had to, thought Ayanna, one should do it in style.
Chippaminka was at her side. Further back in her canoe were her fan men, her tiny son and his own three nursemaid retinue.
The six-day-old boy could vaguely waggle his weedy limbs, moan, squeak, scream like an army of demons and suckle so hard it felt like he was trying to suck her insides out through her nipple. Objectively, he was little more than a noisy maggot. And yet, to Ayanna’s surprise, she already loved him more than she loved herself. She had not expected to, at least not to the degree that she’d die for him without a quibble. Well, maybe a quick quibble—she’d explore other options—but if she really did have to die for him then she’d have been happy to.
She’d called him Calnian and everyone had told her what a great name it was. Of course, she could have called him Cockmuncher and they would have told her that it was a simply marvellous name, but she thought they were sincere about Calnian. It was a good name. His full title, Swan Prince Calnian, sounded rather fine.
Some had suggested that she leave the little boy behind, but she hadn’t considered it for a moment. Chippaminka had consulted her alchemical bowl and agreed that he should come.
Chippaminka was the other person she’d fallen for recently. The girl was a gifted warlock, at least as powerful as Yoki Choppa, but she was also skilled in the sensual arts. Chippaminka’s physical ministrations had begun with oiled massages to Ayanna’s pregnant belly and progressed into more. The girl could do amazing things with her hands.
The excellent Chippaminka had also taken on more than the chief warlock role. She wasn’t the slain Chamberlain Hatho’s official replacement, but she’d assumed his duties, advising the empress and dealing with the boring aspects of rule, such as the logistics of assembling this huge army. Ayanna hardly needed to speak to anyone these days, other than Chippaminka and Calnian.
Yes, things were very well with Ayanna. She had a lovely new son, an excellent and humble new adviser and lover, and they were off to crush the Badlanders and take the Ocean of Grass for Calnia and Calnian.
The only major cloud was the fate of her Owsla. Chippaminka’s alchemical bowl said that Yoki Choppa had tricked them into joining the Badlanders. It was hard to fathom, but she had no reason to disbelieve Chippaminka, and her bowl’s claims had been backed up by the disappearance of the Owsla, apart from Luby Zephyr, of course.
Apparently Luby had been injured and left by the rest of them well before they’d even reached Goachica territory, so was not involved in the treachery. Ayanna had asked to see Luby, but Chippaminka had saved her the bother and given Luby the prefect role. The one remaining Owsla was to train and lead the division of the army that was preparing to fight the rest of their own Owsla, should that prove necessary.
It was a sensible allocation of resources, and, once again, Ayanna had thanked Chippaminka for seeing the right path and acting on it without troubling the empress.
Ayanna looked back and spotted Luby Zephyr on the prow of one of the following boats of dignitaries and generals. She nodded to Luby, who waved rather frantically in reply. Probably trying to convey congratulations on Calnian’s birth, thought the empress. Along with the rest of the Owsla, Luby was as close to a friend as the ruler of an empire could have.
“Chippaminka,” she said, turning to her warlock.
“My empress?” the girl smiled subserviently and salaciously.
“Arrange a private audience with Luby Zephyr as soon as possible.”
“Of course.”
The paddlers paddled on, pulling her boat ever closer to the western bank and the empire of the Badlanders.
Chapter 8
Easy Riding
Around noon the following day, Sitsi Kestrel and Finnbogi the Boggy were kneeling on the deck of the Plains Strider, leaning on the rail.
“If you’d told me a while back,” said Finnbogi, “that I’d be sitting on a sledge the size of a village carried by a herd of buffalo and pulled by several million pigeons, with a couple of deadly spiders strapped to my neck, talking to one of the Calian Owsla, hundreds of miles from Hardwork, heading west and watching a bunch of bald kids trot by on goats while another load of people rode by on dagger-tooth cats, I might not have believed you.”
“They’re not goats,” said Sitsi, “they’re bighorn sheep.”
“Bighorn sheep? Why have I never seen them before?”
Sitsi told Finnbogi what she knew about bighorns; that they lived in the mountains, could walk up and down cliffs, that the males fought by charging headfirst at each other, and more. This led to further explanation. She had to explain what mountains were, that cliffs got quite a bit higher than the little rock walls he’d seen at Heartberry Canyon and the Water Mother, how different animals lived in different places depending on the habitat to which the animal was suited, and on and on.
They were actually okay, the Wootah tribe, Sitsi thought, but by Innowak’s warm rays, were they stupid. Well, maybe not stupid: Stupidity isn’t lack of knowledge, it’s lack of inquiry one of her teachers had told her. By that measure, the Wootah were not stupid. They were, however, forehead slappingly uneducated.
Growing up, Sitsi had been on countless informative field trips. Any animals and plants that she hadn’t seen in their natural habitats, she’s seen in Calnia’s gardens, menageries and markets, or her teachers had described them.
She knew she’d been lucky. The Wootah had never been anywhere nor had anything brought to them and knew almost nothing about the world outside the Goachica confinement. So it was odd that most of them were inquisitive. Finnbogi was like a bright child who’d been confined for life on the Mountain of the Sun in Calnia, told nothing, then let out for the first time when he became an adult. Which, she supposed, wasn’t far from the actual situation.
The Plains Strider rolled along across the Ocean of Grass below a blue sky and a sparse fleet
of high, white clouds gliding from south to north. They’d travelled all the previous day, stopped for the night, then set off again, always westward.
For all her education, Sitsi had never heard of the Plains Strider, or even the notion that such a vehicle could exist. She’d had no idea either that the Badlanders were touring the world collecting people and animals. She guessed the Badlanders kept quiet about it and anybody who saw their giant sledge was either captured or killed.
So, if you could forget the spiders strapped to their necks, and that the unbeatable Owsla had been beaten, and that Chapa Wangwa kept reminding them that a gruesome death awaited them at their destination, they were in a fascinating situation.
Endless prairie stretched all around. There was plenty to marvel at on the Ocean of Grass, but most striking of all were the buffalo. She’d seen herds of buffalo before, but from this elevated position she fully understood just how numerous they were. They’d passed a herd the previous day that must have been a million-strong, walking northwards in a parade ten animals wide, away from a prairie fire that blazed in the south.
As she stared at the sights, seeking out new information and devising new theories, Sitsi asked Finnbogi about the Wootah.
“Our ancestors came across Olaf’s Salt Sea.”
“That must be what we call the Wild Salt Sea.”
“Maybe.”
“Why did they come?”
“They didn’t like the way they were being ruled, so the story goes, and they left.”
“How were they being ruled?”
“Most people lived shitty lives, working hard and often going hungry or cold—even starving or freezing to death—so that a small but powerful gang could muck about raiding other tribes, feasting and getting pissed. The rulers could kill your kid or shag your cattle or whatever whenever the mood took them.”
“They could shag your cattle?”
“That may be an exaggeration, but I think they could have done if they’d wanted to, yes. I don’t really know. I never paid much attention to the elders’ tales.”
Sitsi wrung everything she could about Wootah history from the young man, which did not take long, then decided she might as well educate him if he couldn’t educate her.
“I’ll tell you something I worked out about the buffalo yesterday, if you’re interested,” she said.
“I’m interested!” said Finnbogi, genuinely it seemed.
This was great. In the Owsla, only Luby Zephyr had listened properly to Sitsi’s animal theories, and she was gone. That wasn’t quite true. Chogolisa Earthquake always pretended to be interested but Sitsi could tell that she wasn’t really.
“You see that herd there?” she asked.
Finnobogi peered at the horizon. “Uh, no?”
That was heartening. Her eyesight might be diminishing, but it seemed she could still see a good deal further than normal people, or him at least. “Are your eyes normal?”
“What?”
“Do you have any problems with your eyesight?”
“No. But I can’t see anything but green and blue where you’re pointing.”
“Good.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Can you see that herd?” She pointed.
“Yes.”
“Good, now can you see in front of them, on the path they’re headed along, that the land is a different colour?”
“Yes.”
“In a strip pretty much exactly as wide as the buffalo herd?”
“It’s the same width.”
“Which means …?”
“They’re following a path?”
“Exactly! And who made the path?”
He looked confused for a moment, then said: “They must have done.”
“That’s it!”
“Uh, okay … but so what?”
“Here’s the clever bit. It you have a good look at all their paths, you’ll see that they pass through the lowest parts of the land and the lushest areas of grass.”
“So the buffalo have planned the best routes! I get it.”
Sitsi smiled at his enthusiasm. “And look ahead—the Plains Strider is following one of their paths. Can you see the track sweeping to the left to avoid the higher ground ahead?”
“I can.”
“Any moment we’ll turn left to follow it.”
Satisfyingly, the huge cloud of draught pigeons immediately swung over to the left and the nose of the craft followed.
“Amazing,” said Finnbogi. “My dad Erik—that guy over there,” Finnbogi pointed to where the largest and thickest- bearded of the Wootah tribe was sitting against the opposite side rail, talking to Chogolisa Earthquake, “reckons that animals are just as intelligent as humans but they don’t bother with all the dressing up and talking about pointless crap like we do.”
“He was the exile who lived with the Lakchans?”
“Yes.”
“That figures.”
“What, why?”
“He’s learned a bit.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t be disappointed, you’ll learn, too. You’ve been sheltered. You worked out the buffalo paths without much prompting, and as far as I know, you and I are the only people from east of the Water Mother who’ve done that.”
Finally, one the Owsla was talking to him! They’d ignored Finnbogi the entire first day aboard the Plains Strider, then, on the second, after they’d been fed a really very decent wild rice and buffalo dish for breakfast, the shortest of them had come on over, leant on the rail next to him, told him her name was Sitsi Kestrel and quizzed him about Hardwork and its history.
Finnbogi was delighted to discover that she was no goddess, despite her astonishingly large eyes. She was just like a Hardworker woman, and yet also completely different. Like a Hardworker woman in that she was a normal person, and different because she was her own character, as different as Thyri Treelegs was from Sassa Lipchewer, or Bodil Gooseface was from Gunnhild Kristlover.
Sitsi was fascinated by everything, especially where Olaf the Worldfinder and the rest had come from, and he’d been happy to fill her in on all the details. If she had a fault, it was that she was a bit too proud of her own knowledge and a bit too keen to point out the gaps in his, but that was only if he was being picky, and he’d resolved to try to be less picky.
Thyri Treelegs, sitting across the deck next to Bodil Gooseface, hadn’t looked at them once, but, by the way she was sitting, Finnbogi knew that she knew he’d been chatting away for an absolute age to the young, good-looking, famous warrior woman.
It was also simply magnificent, despite the spiders on their necks, despite the threats of the vile Chapa Wangwa, not to be walking for once. Finnbogi had thought he’d got used to walking all day, that he was even enjoying it. But a day on the Plains Strider, almost entirely free from insects, with nothing to do but sit and stare at the scenery, had shown him that he was best suited to indolence, or at least indolence with a view.
He’d seen a great storm form and sail away who knew how many miles to the south, a tornado a long way off to the south-west, millions of buffalo and other animals, and a prairie fire. And he’d talked to a beautiful warrior goddess straight out of a saga who was proving to be, if not entirely down to earth, then certainly prepared to spend time with someone who was.
The other thing making Finnbogi happy, which he thought was downright odd, was that because they’d been caught, he was no longer scared of being caught.
Yes, the Owsla were their friends now officially, but he’d seen how Sofi Tornado looked at the Wootah and he trusted her about as far as he could have thrown Chogolisa Earthquake. So, even after the Owsla had stopped pursuing then, the terror of pursuit had sat heavy in his gut. Now that they’d been captured good and proper, that fear had gone.
He knew it was dumb. If they tried to escape the beeba spiders would bite them and they’d die horribly, and Chapa Wangwa had promised them a horrible death when they arrived at the Badlands in a few days,
but at least there was nothing chasing him any more.
Then, as if to prove him wrong, or perhaps because the gods didn’t want him to relax, or maybe just because Loakie would find it amusing, a shrill scream ripped through the air; then another, then another.
He put his hands to his ears. Sitsi Kestrel was on her feet in an action-ready stance, scanning the deck of the Plains Strider for the source of the terrifying noise.
“You can talk to animals?” asked Chogolisa Earthquake.
“Shhhh. The others don’t know.” Erik wasn’t sure why he was telling Chogolisa. “I can’t exactly converse with them. I can hear their thoughts sometimes. I can ask some of them to do things for me and they might. But most animals are paranoid, reactionary and selfish and it’s pretty much impossible to persuade them to do something that they weren’t going to do anyway.”
“Can you hear all animals?”
“Most of them. But often it’s not much and sometimes it’s downright unpleasant. Just because you can touch everything doesn’t mean you want to know what everything feels like.”
“Like dog turds.”
“The perfect analogy. Try to talk to a chipmunk, for example, and you’ll wish you could scrub your mind clean. They’re twisted little fuckers.”
“Can you get our spiders not to bite us?”
The flock of crowd pigeons swung to the left and the deck creaked and moved. Chogolisa shifted to steady herself and her knee came to rest on Erik’s.
“I’m already trying,” he replied, leaving his knee where it was, “but I can’t find anything. It’s like trying to carve a stone by looking at it. And the pigeons are even odder. They just shout at me to go away lest I divide the flock. I think that whatever I can do, those Empty Children can do a lot better. Maybe they’re stopping me from talking to their animals.”
“What about the squatch?” she nodded at the hairy giant sitting on its own at the rear of the deck.
“I had a go yesterday. I get nothing from that either, but in a different way. I can’t use my mind to communicate with people in any way. I get the same sort of feeling of nothing from her.”