by Alan Lawton
Ulf was unquestionably proud of his families’ success at adapting themselves to the practice of husbandry. Yet the old station proprietor admitted that he sorely missed the days when the caravans from the river-lands called regularly at his establishment and traded their wares to the numerous clans-folk who once dwelt hereabouts.
“Where are those clans-folk now? Darryl had asked, before retiring to the hostelry to rest in the comfort of his bunk.
“Dead or scattered to the winds!” Ulf had replied. “That would have been our fate also, but for our fertile garden, our stout boundary walls and deadly skill with our darters when bandits approach.”
The boatmaster then ceased to question the old man and had retired to his bunk in the station’s hostelry where he now lay and the last thing that he heard was the distant call of a wild narr as he slipped into a deep dreamless sleep.
On their first full morning at the way-station, the travellers awoke and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at a bench outside the door of the combined kitchen and dining room. The kitchen was a smoky establishment occupying a wing of the station proprietor’s dwelling, and was itself conveniently situated close to the main gate at the western end of the complex.
Upon completion of the meal, Darryl wiped his mouth and declared his intention for the caravan to resume its march no later than the day after tomorrow. Paris however, said that he had earlier examined the transport narr, who were stabled close to the hostelry where the travellers had spent the night, and said that two of the animals were now quite lame. He also added that the remaining animals needed several darkenings rest before they would be fit to continue the trek or they would certainly die on the march. Darryl cursed when he heard the news, but he realized the inevitability of the situation and he accepted the need to remain as the guests of the station proprietor for a further week at the very least.
Most of the members of the expedition were happy at the prospect of a period of rest and recreation, but Myra remained uncharacteristically tense and in low spirits. She pushed away the remains of her breakfast and quietly informed the gathering that her witch’s intuition had warned her that a period of extreme danger lay ahead of them and their very survival would soon be under threat.
“Are we to come under attack from some enemy from yonder wilderness?”
The boatmaster asked. “Or must we expect treachery from our hosts?” But the young wisewoman simply shook her head and stated that any threat was likely to be of an elemental nature and that was all she knew.
The travellers spent the remainder of the day resting and tending their animals and Ulf proudly showed the newcomers his carefully tended gardens that provided his hard working family with a sufficiency of fresh vegetables. The garden also provided a valuable surplus that could be dried and bartered to passing narr hunters, or simply held as a necessary reserve of food to support his family in hard times. Much hard labour was certainly required to make the gardens constantly fruitful, for the way-station had originally been constructed on the gentle lower slopes of the hill dominating the complex, and the gardens, together with the hostelry, the narr stables and a number of store building, lay just within the upper rear wall of the station.
A large manually powered pumping system had to be frequently operated by the members of Ulf’s family, in order to lift the irrigation waters from the well in the centre of the way-station yard, to the gardens lying at a slightly higher elevation.
“Aye, we spend many hours each day pushing those confounded handles,” the station proprietor said with a sigh, “but we must do it if we wish to continue living in this place.” The five travellers viewed the blooming and productive gardens and could only agree.
The company had just finished taking breakfast, on the fourth morning of their stay at the way-station, when they felt the atmosphere about them grow suddenly cold and clammy. Whiteflower immediately stopped dead in her tracks and stared over the walls in the direction of the southern sky. Moments later, a mass of dark cloud began rolling in from the south and quickly obliterated all of the light radiating from the five suns. Asharp wind arose, whipping up the dust lying in the enclosure and bringing a bitterly cold chill to the bodies of the travellers.
Whiteflower gave an anguished cry.
“May all the unseen powers aid us? The ‘Devil’s rain’ is almost upon us. Quickly, run for the hostelry, where we sleep, for it possesses a strong roof and will give us the best protection that we can find.”
“Hurry,” She cried out taking to her heels. “The rain from hell will soon strike and we had best not be in the open when it does!”
The little group had hardly reached the shelter of their accommodation building when the rains struck like a hammer blow; the newcomers to the Water-Realm where aghast at the sheer weight of water falling from the inky black sky. Indeed, no rainfall experienced inside their native reality came within even a fraction of equalling the frightful deluge that cascaded down upon the roof of the dormitory. The thunder of the rain made normal speech quite impossible and Whiteflower drew her fellow travellers together into a tight group in order to converse with them.
“The Devil’s rain comes out of the lands far to the east and strikes with very little warning.” She cried. “Anyone who is unfortunate enough to be caught in the open will be beaten into the earth and drowned where they lie, whilst many others will be swept away by the incredible torrents of flood water that sweeps across the plains. Entire villages are often crushed by the force of the storm, but fortunately this way-station is built upon rising ground and we may yet survive the worst impact of the ‘Devil’s rain’ that is yet to arrive.”
The tribeswoman pointed towards a number of two-tier bunks occupying the far wall of the hostelry.
“If the water enters this building, then we must take shelter on top of those bunks and hope that it does not rise far enough to drown us.”
Myra placed her mouth close to Whiteflower’s ear.
“Does the ‘Devil’s rain’ come to plague your people every cycle?” She asked.
The girl shook her head. “No, its visits to these western lands are extremely rare events and have never struck this particular portion of the wilderness since my grandfathers grandfather was a child. Indeed, if it came more frequently then human life could not be sustained here.”
She pointed towards the packs filled with trade goods that had been borne by the transport narr and she gave orders for them to be piled for safety upon some of the highest bunks. She also suggested that everyone would be well advised to seek similar shelter for themselves.
The travellers did as they where bidden and cowered upon the top tiers of the bunks as the violence of the storm increased. Soon, water began flooding into the dormitory until it would have reached the thighs of anyone standing in the middle of the room and jets of water squirted down from the ceiling as the rain penetrated every minuscule chink in the stout stone flagged roof. Inevitably, the single small oil lamp illuminating the room was extinguished by a splash of water and the travellers were left stranded amidst the roaring darkness.
Time passed and the fugitives cowered in helpless terror upon their frail refuges as the increasingly violent rain-storm raged only inches above their heads. Even the normally fearless boat hand bit upon his lip until the blood ran down his chin.
Myra was the first of the company to succumb to the sheer horror of the situation, for the young witch’s highly tuned senses were crushed by the elemental power of the storm. She began to scream uncontrollably and tried to bury herself beneath the sleeping cloths lying on top of the bunk, like some kind of panic stricken animal. Paris, the telepathic envoy, was also shaken to the depths of his being by the terror radiating from the girls mind. He found fresh courage and dragging himself across the narrow void between their bunks he clasped the helpless young wisewoman to his breast and held her tightly as the storm raged. The other members of the party were also cowed into near helplessness by the terrible product of nature beating and
howling above their heads. The boatmaster began striking the side of his bunk repetitively with his fist, whilst tears ran down George’s face for the first time since his early childhood.
The storm raged for what seemed like a veritable infinity to the frightened and cowering travellers. Then it ended as abruptly as it had begun.
Whiteflower slipped down from her refuge on top of a bunk and, after much effort, managed to light a lamp allowing the little group to view their immediate surroundings. The dormitory was flooded to a depth of about three feet and Darryl was submerged up to his knees as he swung himself down to the floor, but the waters were receding quickly and the flood water only reached up to the ankles of his comrades as they joined him at the door of the chamber.
The boatmaster opened the door of the hostelry and, one by one, they joined him in the open air.
The ‘Devil’s rain’ had disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived and the light of the five suns was again beating down from the crimson sky and illuminating a scene of utter devastation. The way-station was built upon the lower slopes of the hill and the flood-waters were fast receding from the walled enclosure where the five travellers stood. However, they were horrified to see that the torrential rains had done their worst, for the entire boundary wall of the station had subsided completely, and all that remained of the main gateway and the dwelling accommodation occupied by Ulf and his family, were a few tangled piles of debris protruding from an expanse of mud and slime. And the travellers knew their hosts had not survived the visitation of the ‘Devil’s rain.’
Darryl concentrated his mind upon their present situation and was relieved to note that the stable building was still intact and an immediate inspection proved that the resilient transport narr had survived and were in reasonably good condition. A storehouse standing close to the eastern wall had also escaped and a quick search of its interior revealed an abundance of dried provisions that had been stacked high enough to escape the worst of the floods.
“We shan’t starve in a hurry,” Darryl remarked, as he examined a basket of dried seeds. “But how can we possibly continue our march to the lands of the Hix? For the trade route must be quite impassable to land travel.”
“The situation may not be as bad as it first seems, master.” Whiteflower said as she salvaged a sack of root vegetables from the water. “The ‘Devil’s rain’ is sometimes local in its effect, but capable of flooding the plains almost to the distant uplands of my own people. We must climb the hill behind us and view the extent of the flooding.”
The travellers crossed over the heaps of rubble where the boundary wall had once stood and began clambering up the slopes of the hill. A task proving to be far from easy, for the ground was slippery with mud and the five companions were often forced to grasp hold of the clumps of the crimson moss that had survived the flood and haul themselves bodily upwards.
Darryl was the first of the climbers to reach the crest of the hill and he openly cursed the view meeting his eyes. Glistening flood-waters lay on every side and they stretched away as far as the distant horizon; only low hills and stretches of high ground stood clear of the waters and they resembled groups of isolated Islands scattered across some endless primeval sea.
Suddenly, the boatmaster’s mood changed and he burst out laughing and slapped his thigh with glee, whilst his companions were taken aback and stared at him as though he had taken leave of his senses.
“My friends,” He shouted. “We need not endure the hardship of trekking under the heat of the five suns, or take the risk of being ambushed every time we pass a pile of rocks. No, the flood waters, brought by the ‘Devil’s rain,’ has given us a fresh route to the land of the Hix. We will salvage timbers and iron nails from the wreckage of yonder way-station and build ourselves a stout craft that will carry us to the hills of the Kev, which lie beyond the flooded plains. Aye and we will scour the ruins for strong Thoa-ropes and the cured hides of wild narr and make ourselves a sail that will carry us to our destination without effort; providing that we are granted fair winds and no more than our share of good luck!” The boatmaster leapt from the summit of the hill and splashed through the mud and slime in the direction of the devastated way-station.
“Come, my comrades!” He shouted. “Come with all haste and let us begin building the vessel that will carry us to the land of the Hix.”
Chapter 11
Whiteflower uttered a cry of pleasure and relief as she came within sight of the village of her birth and the four members of the expedition, upon hearing her exclamation, hurried forward and joined her at the head of the party. The village of the Kev appeared to be a substantial settlement protected by a high stockade spanning the mouth of the deep canyon in which the village lay. On both sides of the entrance to the canyon, and beyond, there reared a range of jagged hills, that, as Whiteflower had earlier explained, acted as a natural boundary between the sparsely populated western plains and the ‘Wastelands of the Hix.’
Darryl heaved a sigh of relief and he placed his hand upon the young tribeswoman’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“You must be glad to set eyes upon your home after all your wanderings, aye and be happy to see your friends and relatives again?”
The girl replied with a nod and the boatmaster smiled with satisfaction as he gazed upon the nearby village; for the journey from the flood destroyed way-station to the jagged hills of the Kev, had tested both his ability to be a leader of men and also his skill in making the logical decisions required to ensure the expedition’s survival.
Indeed, his authority had not always been accepted without question. For example, his decision to build the makeshift craft that had successfully borne them almost as far as the foothills of the Kev had been strongly contested by the knowledgeable Whiteflower. The tribeswoman had insisted that the expeditions safest course of action was to bide their time and hope the floods would quickly recede, thus allowing them to resume their land journey without too much delay. Darryl however, had overruled the girl and driven the party unmercifully for the space of fourteen days, until they succeeded in completing a spacious sailing raft, which they named ‘Floodrider’
The boatmaster reflected upon the care he had taken whilst supervising the loading of the craft, for all the food that could be salvaged from the destroyed way-station had been loaded onto the raft, together with the trade goods normally carried upon the backs of the transport narr. Finally, he had taken the utmost care in accommodating the tough little animals in a specially constructed pen, which the travellers had built in the stern of the craft.
Twenty-one days after their arrival at the ill starred way-station the expedition had cast off and sailed westwards, assisted by a strong and favourable breeze.
The voyage, the boatmaster recalled, had presented the travellers with few problems for the direction and strength of the wind remained constant and ‘Floodrider’ was never becalmed for a single day or even threatened by a dangerous gale.
The company of five had quickly fallen into a regular routine as the day’s passed by. They had kept the craft under full sail during the hours of daylight and with the onset of night; they moored themselves to one of the numerous temporary Islands standing above the waters of the flooded plain. Once secure, they were able to make camp for the night and enjoyed almost perfect security. Darryl however, had always ensured that an alert guard was set during the hours of darkness and that the craft was under way again, as the first glimmer of light began illuminating the morning sky.
On two occasions, the craft had sailed past islets, sheltering groups of human survivors, who begged pitiably to be taken aboard and conveyed to the dry land, but the travellers had hardened their hearts and given them no assistance, for the craft was already overloaded and there was no telling how long their supplies of food would have to last.
Shortage of food, however, had never proved to be a problem, for groups of wild narr were often found stranded upon patches of dry ground. They were easily kil
led with a few well aimed darter bolts and they provided the travellers with a frequent supply of fresh meat.
Neither Darryl, nor any of the other members of the little expedition, were surprised when Myra and the envoy Paris had become lovers during the course of that rafts voyage over the flooded plain; for they had been quite obviously drawn to each other, ever since the ‘Devil’s rain,’ when they had clung desperately to one another for comfort. The pair now slept openly together and the boatmaster made no objection, for he knew quite well that the Littlewood wisewomen brooked no criticism from anyone over their choice of partners. Darryl however, had learned much from his nearly fatal sexual encounter with the aristocratic woman on the ‘Isle of Plenty’ and had been determined to remain celibate until the expedition reached the borderlands of the Hix, even though Whiteflower had openly expressed her willingness to satisfy all of his sexual desires. Even so, the boatmaster had refused her offer as gently as possible for he knew that George’s amorous needs could not be similarly met and he well understood the dangers that could arise from stirring up unbridled jealousy.