by GARY DARBY
Around us, more rocks plunge into the churning waters. “If we don’t drown,” I yell, “we’ll be buried under these rocks!”
The log we’re hanging on to has wedged itself against a rock ledge in the cliff and is being held there by the turbulent current. “We need help,” Cara cries as, with my aid, she pulls herself up next to her father.
I spin around, frantically searching for any sign of our missing comrades, when suddenly, Phigby, using his bag to float on, pops up just in front of me. “Phigby!” I cry out.
Lightning crackles so close overhead that both of us are blinded by the flash. Then he sees me.
“Hooper!” he calls back and strokes over to our makeshift raft. He grabs a limb and hoists himself onto the trunk, pulling his bag with him.
I point over to Cara and her father. “Master Boren is hurt.”
Just then, a giant boulder comes crashing down and almost lands on our life-saving log. A fountain of water explodes up and over us.
Ducking under the deluge, Phigby shouts, “And he’ll be dead if we don’t get out of this.”
He points up through the downpour at the water pouring over the cliffs. “The water’s eating away at the cliff,” he shouts. “If the flood doesn’t stop, it’ll bring the whole thing down on our heads.”
I wipe away water from my eyes and and peer up at the smooth cliff walls. “How do we get out? We can’t climb up those walls.”
“The dragons!” Cara yells. “We can we use them to carry us out of here!”
“They’re gone,” Phigby hollers back. “When the flood hit, I saw them fly away, up and through the overhanging branches. With this rain and wind, I doubt if they could find us.”
“Scamper,” I demand, “did the golden have Scamper?”
“Yes,” he sputters, “and the sapphires carried the sprogs in their talons. Hopefully, they’re a lot safer than we are.”
Just then, in the glare of several lightning strikes, I see two heads bobbing in the swirling current, holding onto a small, uprooted tree.
“Amil!” I shout. “Helmar! Over here!”
The two turn at my shout and with steady strokes swim to our makeshift raft. “Fotina? Alonya? Have you seen them?” Phigby questions when they grab hold of our bobbing log.
Before they can answer, a whole section of the nearby cliff gives way, sending a churning wave that tosses Phigby from the log and plunges the rest of us under the water.
When we surface, I let out a breath of relief to see that Cara has somehow managed to hold on to Master Boren during our wild ride.
Phigby grabs a limb and pulls himself halfway back onto the tree trunk. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he sputters, spitting muddy water from his mouth. “These cliffs are about to give way.”
“How?” Helmar calls back. “We can’t climb, and the dragons are gone.”
Amil points downstream through the raging downpour. “The valley’s entrance must be underwater by now.”
“That may be so,” Phigby acknowledges, “but if we can get to it, it may be our only way out.”
Just then, from farther up the canyon, there’s a sharp crack! We turn at the sound and in the searing blaze of lightning that crackles through the air, we see a massive piece of cliff plunge into the dark water.
A huge wave speeds toward us.
Helmar and Amil scramble over the log just in time to latch on to Master Boren before the wave picks us up, slams us against the cliff before it drops us back into the frothing water.
I come flailing to the top, sputtering and taking in great drafts of air. The log bobs to the surface right next to me.
Thankfully, I see that Cara and the others have managed to cling not only to the log, but they’ve held on to Master Boren as well.
Something scrapes against my shoulder, and I turn to find the little tree that Amil and Helmar have used to stay afloat right next to me.
I grab onto a limb and pull myself halfway out of the water, still spitting out gobs of muddy-tasting liquid. I furiously paddle my little log over next to the larger tree trunk.
“If one of those mountain-sized chunks falls on us, we’ve had it!” Amil shouts.
“We can’t just float here,” Helmar bellows, “waiting for the cliff to come down!”
Phigby pulls himself over so that his face is next to mine. “Hooper, the only way out is the way we came in.”
I immediately understand. The gemstone. He’s asking if I can use the power of Voxtyrmen to somehow breach the front wall, so that as the water rushes out, it takes us with it and away from the collapsing cliffs.
Swiping water and mud off my face, I answer in a hesitant voice answer, “I don’t know if I can.”
Suddenly, I have a vision of me swept away in the surging maelstrom of the unleashed flood. The little whirlpool I was caught in before would be nothing in comparison.
I would be caught in its grip, sucked down and down, unable to swim, unable to breathe, my life measured in a few heartbeats.
Phigby must have seen the fear in my eyes for he suddenly snaps, “Hooper! Look at me, son. You can do the hard things. You’ve been doing them your whole life, you just never realized it. And you can do this, too.”
Swiveling my body around, I peer Cara. Her eyes and voice are pleading, “Please, Hooper, try before it’s too late.”
Is love stronger than fear? Or is it just a form of momentary madness? I’m not sure.
All I know is that once I saw that beseeching expression on Cara’s face, once I heard the desperate plea in her voice, an idea formed in my mind.
I say to the others, “Everyone onto the log and hang on tight.”
“What are you planning on doing?” Helmar calls out.
“You use battering rams to knock down walls, don’t you?” I growl. “I’m going to make us a battering ram.”
I pull myself onto the log next to Phigby. In a lightning flash, I see him peering at me with narrowed eyebrows. “Can you do it?”
“How hard can it be to make a battering ram?” I answer. “I made a litter to carry a giant didn’t I?”
“Big enough to knock down that wall?”
“If I can’t,” I answer, “then you’ll be the second to know.”
I turn and call out, “Everyone set?”
“Set!” Helmar shouts.
Pulling out the gemstone, I grab a limb that still has fresh leaves on it and loudly say, “Vald Hitta Sasi Ein! Power Comes to this One!”
For an instant, nothing happens, and then I feel a rush of power surge through me and into the wood.
Even over the pounding downpour, I can hear a loud creaking and groaning from deep within the log. The tree rocks from side to side and then suddenly the wood at the front and along the sides splits open.
Before my unbelieving eyes, the wood from inside the log pushes outward, growing larger and larger. What was once just big enough to fit all of us on, now becomes large enough even for Fotina and Alonya and still it grows.
From the sides, the limbs become thicker, heavier, and longer. They push out farther and farther into the swift current. Then amazingly, the branches start to reach forward and then arc back, like long, leafy paddles.
We start to turn and slowly move forward. A series of lightning flashes lights up the sky. Cara jerks up from where she’s holding on to Master Boren and points into the center of the swirling, black water.
“Alonya and Fotina!”
We all turn and in another lightning stroke, I see the giant maiden, one arm wrapped around Fotina and pulling her as she strokes through the water.
I have no idea how, but the log turns slightly in their direction and moments later, Helmar and Amil are helping Alonya pull a lifeless Fotina onto our waterborne battering ram.
No sooner are the two giants on, then the limbs begin paddling swiftly and forcefully, again. They are in perfect unison, and since I have no way to steer, I let the log go wherever it’s taking us.
Faster and fa
ster the limbs sweep through the water as we gain speed even in the whirling, raging floodwaters.
Lightning crackles just over our head and in the glow I can see the wall above the cleft opening dead ahead.
At the same time, something in the air, just above the high wall, catches my eye, and I lean forward to try and see better. Another stroke of lightning flashes overhead and my eyes go wide at what I see.
Vay.
Her tattered robe swirls around her, her eyes glow red, and on her face is a grim smile of delight.
She raises her skeleton-like fingers high in the air. Suddenly, there’s not only a thundering downpour, there’s a roaring gale that hits our log boat, trying to lift us off the wood as if we were kites in the wind.
We’re thrashed about, the wind pulling and tugging, trying to rip our fingers away from our handholds.
Helmar and Amil have a death grip on a stout branch while at the same time desperately holding on to Master Boren.
Cara has her arms wrapped around another tree limb, but her grip is precarious at best as she is trying to hold on to her branch and her father at the same time.
Alonya has her body draped over Fotina, with one arm under her shoulders and her two hands clasped tight around a limb as thick as her arm.
Phigby is spread-eagled with his hands gripping a branch and his bag which whips and flops about in the rushing wind.
Our leaf paddles are pounding the water furiously but even so, we’re being pushed back, farther and farther away from the headwall.
I turn and see just where Vay’s tempest is driving us.
Into the cliff.
A lightning streak flashes across the sky and my mouth sags. In the glow, I can see a huge crack forming in the stone wall and immediately understand Vay’s cruel delight.
The cliff is going to come hurtling down.
On top of us.
Just then, there is an ear-splitting, thunderous crack to our left. I gawk as a colossal portion of the opposite cliff rapidly gives way.
Instead of toppling over into the flood, it teeters for just an instant before it plunges straight down.
In its wake, a gigantic wave surges up and races toward us. I gape wide-eyed before I yell out, “Get down! Get down and hang on!”
I don’t know if it’s because of the sheer terror inside me, but abruptly our leafy limbs paddle even more furiously, churning the water into a frothy foam.
Somehow, against the wind, we actually stop moving and are held in place.
I glance back to see the giant wave rushing at us, somehow growing even larger, readying itself to come crashing down, burying us under a mountain of water.
Frantically, I try to get the limb paddles to move faster, but the faster they paddle, the harder Vay’s wind blows.
I glance up at her and suck in a breath. Her arms are held high, her hands curled as if she would reach out and throttle my neck. She’s moving closer, riding the storm tempest, her shredded robe whipped by the gale.
All at once, she stops, and her head snaps up. Her eyes go wide as she stares, but at what?
I whip my head around and in the glare of a lightning streak, I see a bright glow, almost as if the moons had suddenly combined into a large golden sphere. The radiance sweeps across the wave’s front.
Then, from the aura, tendril-like watery fingers reach out from the wave. My body goes rigid, and for a moment, I think that Vay is causing the watery fingers to reach out and snatch us from our log, hurling us into the oncoming monster wave.
Instead, the fingers latch on to the log, and suddenly we’re propelled forward with an enormous burst of speed as if the log is splitting the wind and water. We whip across the powerful flow, like a stone skipping across a pond.
I hear a shriek of fury and glance up. Vay’s face is pure rage, her claw-like fingers outstretched.
She brings one hand back as if she were going to hurl an ever greater onslaught of raging wind at us, but before she can, we shoot forward, right at the arch wall.
“Hold on, we’re going to hit!” I bellow.
I throw myself down onto the hard bark and all but wrap my body around a jutting tree limb.
Like a spear through a watermelon, we slice through the raging current and slam into the wall.
There’s a tremendous crash and jarring that snaps my grasp on my limb and throws me forward against another branch that I wrap my body around.
I’m jolted against the tree limb again before the sounds come of stone cracking and crumbling, and the rock wall holding the water back bursts open.
Great pieces of craggy stone splash on each side of our battering ram and I can hear the snapping of wood as rock chunks break several side limbs in two.
Then, the bottom falls out from under us, and we’re slipping, sliding, speeding down a thundering waterfall chute.
The log is rocking up and down and side to side before we hit with a deafening splash in a churning pool at the bottom. The wave picks us up and shoots us down the streambed.
We smash into trees, knocking them off their root beds. Tree limbs sweep across our log, snagging and grabbing as if they would snatch us from the safety of our makeshift raft and fling us into the raging torrent.
Our log speeds down the valley until the water starts to slow and spread out until finally we come to a jarring halt on a sandbank.
We all lie wheezing for breath until Phigby pushes himself to a sitting position and croaks out, “Is everyone here? Did we lose anyone?”
“Father and I are here,” Cara murmurs, breathing hard.
“I’m here,” Helmar grunts.
“And I,” Amil coughs.
“Hooper?” Phigby calls over his shoulder.
“Here,” I sputter as I pull myself upright.
“Alonya? Fotina?” Phigby calls.
There is a moment of silence before I hear Alonya murmur, “I’m here, but we have lost one. The Lady Fotina is dead.”
Phigby and I push past broken and torn limbs to find Alonya holding Fotina’s head in her lap. Fotina’s eyes are closed and her body lifeless in death.
Alonya gently strokes her forehead before she peers at Phigby. Her voice chokes as she asks, “Of all the things to see in a dream, why did I have to see this?”
I look past the grieving Alonya to see Cara and Helmar helping a dazed Master Boren sit up. Just past them, Amil is pushing twisted branches aside that fell on him during our wild ride.
One part of me is glad to see our little company still survives, another part is saddened at Alonya’s loss.
I kneel on the rough, soggy bark close to Alonya and tuck the gemstone into my tunic. Its power saved us, but not Fotina.
We only knew her for a short while, but I felt we were in the presence of a gracious lady and courageous warrior.
I sadly gaze upon her face.
Her eyes pop open.
Chapter 16
“Fotina!” Alonya bawls as Fotina chokes and shudders trying to take a breath, fighting to draw life back into her body.
“Roll her on her side,” Phigby orders. The giantess spews up great gobs of dark, muddy water while trying to breathe at the same time.
“Keep her head down,” Phigby directs as he moves next to Alonya to help, “or she’ll breathe in the water again.”
We gather anxiously around as Fotina struggles to draw another breath and then another until finally she is able to suck in great draughts of air and slowly, her breathing returns to normal.
Alonya rolls Fotina on her back so that her head lies in Alonya’s lap. She pushes back Fotina’s stringy, soaked hair from her face and her voice is close to a sob as she holds the older woman about the shoulders.
“Fotina, you’re alive, but in my dream, I saw you dead.”
Fotina gives Alonya a tiny smile. “Then it would appear that not all dreams come true, especially the bad ones.”
With my own smile, I glance up. The storm is dissipating, the rain slowing to a drizzle, the light
ning only an occasional flash followed by muted thunder.
I turn to Phigby and mutter, “Was that one of your spring storms? You know, the ones we normally get this time of year?”
He peers at me before he turns his gaze upstream toward Alonya’s and Fotina’s hidden valley. From behind him, I hear Amil, “That was more than any spring storm I’ve ever experienced.”
“And I as well, Amil,” Phigby concedes. He tugs on his dripping wet beard and mutters, “But it may not be the last visited upon us.”
“Vay,” I whisper to Phigby, “she was here, in the clouds.”
Phigby glances sideways at me with a slight nod. “It was she who brought the storm,” he confirms, “but I suspect that it was her sisters that saved us.”
His answer startles me. “They were here, too? I didn’t see them.”
“Did you not see the glow that swept across the wave?” he asks, “and how we were propelled forward in spite of Vay’s tempest? We owe Osa, Nadia, and Eskar a great deal of thanks.
“If not for them and your use of the gemstone, Vay would have brought the entire cliff down upon us, and I dare say we would not be holding this conversation.”
He chuckles lightly. “I have to admit, I don’t believe I’ve ever ridden a more odd-appearing or odd-acting boat in my life.”
He claps me on the shoulder, saying, “But it certainly served us well enough so you deserve our thanks as well, lad.”
“Aye,” Amil adds. “Once again you saved the Hooper warrior clan, though after what I’ve seen trees do in the last few days, I’m not sure I’ll ever look at a tree quite the same way again.”
“Thank you, Hooper,” Cara’s voice is soft, but it fills and warms me as if I’d just drunk a whole jug of hot dandyroot tea.
Phigby turns to Fotina and holds out his bag. “My lady, may I offer you a warming potion? It will take away the chill.”
Fotina waves a hand at him. “Save your medicines for those who really need them. I shall be well enough once I catch my breath.”
Phigby gestures to Master Boren. “Boren, what can I do for you?”
He too waves Phigby away. “My head’s a bit woozy, but nothing a little rest won’t cure.”