The Water Road

by JD Byrne

  The thought gave Strefer a shiver. “All right, then, back to my original question. What, exactly, are we looking for?”

  “What we need is a goods transport,” he said. They reached the end of the pier, turned around, and walked back. Apparently, there was nothing suitable on this one. “One that’s large enough to make good time upriver, but small enough that it takes on a few passengers to help bring in some extra coins.” They stopped at the shoreline and he turned to her. “You can pay for passage, right?”

  Honestly, the question had not occurred to her. “You remember the part of my story where there were two guys tearing through my apartment, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So no, I did not have an opportunity to dig into my savings.” She opened the pouch slung over her shoulder and pulled out a beaten leather purse. She loosened the strings that held it closed and held it out for Rurek’s inspection, shaking it lightly to make the coins inside jingle. “You think this is enough?”

  He scowled. “It will have to do, I guess,” he said.

  “Do you have anything?” she asked.

  Rurek crossed his arms. “You remember the part of my story where I used to be a Sentinel?”

  Strefer nodded meekly.

  “Sentinels who work as peace officers on the streets of Tolenor aren’t allowed to carry money. That way, if anyone bribes us during our shift, the bosses will find it at the end of the day.”

  “Wow,” Strefer said. “Really? You’d think they would trust you a little more than that.”

  “It’s the merchants they don’t trust, I think,” Rurek said, walking over to the next pier, where the search for a suitable vessel began again. “But yes, it was somewhat demeaning. The bottom line, however, is that since we left straight from headquarters, I don’t have anything to help fill the coffers.”

  “So what do we do?” Strefer asked. She closed the purse, put it back in her pouch, and jogged to catch up with him on the next pier.

  “Like I said, people don’t really know what Sentinels do,” he said. “Let’s hope we find someone who thinks they are entitled to cut-rate passage. Once we get to the Arbor, at least, we can live off the land.”

  The thought of dining on wildlife turned Strefer’s stomach a bit, but she quickly put it out of her mind. If that was the worst thing she had to deal with on the journey ahead, she would eagerly endure it. As they walked down the pier, Rurek paused and began to pay increased attention to one of the boats tied up alongside. “What is it?”

  Rurek ignored her, walking over to inspect a small flatboat, sitting low as it bumped rhythmically against the pier, that was taking on cargo. It was nestled between a pair of much larger boats, so that Strefer had not seen it before Rurek went to look it over. He turned to her and said, “This might do nicely.” He gestured towards the bow, on which the name Kanawha was written.

  A small old man was overseeing several others who were loading cargo. His skin was dark green, which indicated he was from the deep part of the Arbor. Rurek attracted his attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned, looked over the Sentinel before him, and stepped off the boat onto the pier. “Can I help you?” he said, pausing for just a moment before adding, “sir?”

  “I hope so,” Rurek said. “Is this your vessel?”

  “Aye, she is,” the old man said. “She is called Kanawha. I am called Traf, although you may call me captain, if you like.”

  “Kanawha,” Rurek said, as if he was turning the word over in his mind. “I don’t recognize that word.”

  “No reason you should, Sentinel,” Traf said. “It’s Neldathi. Name of a shallow area on the Water Road near Great Basin Lake. Very calm and peaceful, if you manage to avoid the shoals.”

  “Seems an odd name for a riverboat,” Rurek said, more to Strefer than to Traf. The old man just shrugged. “How does a man from the deep Arbor find his way to Tolenor?” Rurek asked him.

  “Came down the Adon years ago as a young man. I’ve lived on the river ever since.” He paused and looked at Rurek for a moment. “You are from the Arbor yourself, Sentinel. From…Vertidala?”

  “Close,” Rurek said with a chuckle. “Kerkondala. And you?”

  “Nevskondala was where I was born. But, as I said, the river is my home now. I spent many nights in Kerkondala, though. Nights I’d rather forget,” the old man said, laughing.

  Strefer felt like an outsider when it came to this Arborian bonding, but she recognized that it was leading somewhere. She hoped so, anyway. While Rurek and Traf talked, she looked over her shoulder, scanning the coast for any sign of the men who had broken into her apartment.

  “Captain, where are you bound on this particular voyage?” Rurek finally asked.

  “Bound for Innisport this time, Sentinel,” Traf said. “We leave as soon as we’re loaded.”

  Rurek pretended to be surprised by this pleasant coincidence. “As it happens, my companion and I have need of passage to Innisport. Would you, by chance, have room for two passengers in your fine vessel?”

  Traf looked at him skeptically for a moment. “Kanawha ain’t a passenger cruise boat, Sentinel. Surely there must be more comfortable quarters to be had somewhere else on this pier.”

  Rurek began to walk slowly towards the old man. “While I appreciate the advice, captain, you didn’t answer the question I asked. Do you have room for two passengers?” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped to Traf and put his arm around his shoulder. “Captain, what I am asking you—completely off the record, you understand—is to help the Triumvirate on a matter of utmost importance and delicacy. Do you see that woman there?” He pointed at Strefer. She waved back. “She has vital intelligence about the Neldathi hordes in the Vander Range. Her expertise is needed down the Water Road, not here in Tolenor. The whole matter is, what is the word I’m looking for…”

  “Sensitive?” Traf said eagerly.

  “Yes,” Rurek said. “Precisely. It is a sensitive matter.” He patted the old man on the chest. “So you understand that I can’t simply walk up to any commercial transport and book passage for us. It could be dangerous, with all those people about. I am sworn to protect this woman. I would be delinquent in my duty if we simply booked passage on a transport. You see?”

  The old man nodded. “Where is it that you need to go, Sentinel?”

  “Innisport, to tell the truth, will suit just fine. It’s not our final destination, but, well, you understand I cannot tell you that, can I?”

  “Of course not, Sentinel,” Traf said.

  “So, back to my original question, Captain. Do you have room for two passengers on this journey? We can pay, although perhaps not as much as you would prefer.” He waved over Strefer and said to her, simply, “The purse.” She gave it to him and he dropped it gently in Traf’s waiting hand.

  “That is no problem, Sentinel,” the old man said, feeling the weight of the purse. “Do you have any belongings?”

  “None other than what we carry,” Rurek said, releasing the old man from his grip.

  “Very well, then,” Traf said. He stepped towards Strefer and extended his hand. “Welcome, my lady. Your vessel awaits.” He flashed her a dirty, gap-toothed smile.

  Without a word, she took his hand and was led onto the deck of the Kanawha. Within the hour, they were underway.

  Chapter 15

  The days, perhaps weeks, passed on without a change in Antrey’s routine. Wake in the snow, hopefully near a stream or pond, after a decent night’s sleep. Make a quick survey for something to eat. Take the bottle and pack it with snow or fresh water to last her on that day’s journey. Afterwards, gather her possessions and continue the trek south. It was the only course Antrey could be certain about. The terrain was so similar nearly everywhere that had she not maintained a fixed trajectory, she might have been walking in circles. Now on the southern side of the mountains, she followed a stream that ran downhill, towards the south, and hopefully the nearest valley.

  The terrain had als
o been vastly empty. Aside from the occasional bear or elk, Antrey was utterly alone in her travels. At one point she reached a peak from which she could see down into a narrow valley far in the distance. She thought she saw a large crowd of Neldathi moving through the valley. It was what Neldathi did, after all, when spring was upon them. The clans would shift from the more sheltered valleys back into the mountains in the warmer months. But she quickly realized she was letting wishful thinking cloud her observations. From that distance, what she saw could have been anything or nothing at all, a trick of the light.

  Although the loneliness at times wore on Antrey like a rough stone, she was beginning to feel that she needed it, or at least deserved it. Her encounter with Emkar had shaken her more than she admitted at first. It was not so much the warning about revenge. She realized she should let her head become a roiling emotional cauldron. It had more to do with the simple fact that, in spite of all the time she had spent alone since she fled from Tolenor, Antrey had not given much thought to what might happen when she actually encountered the Neldathi.

  If she were actually one of them, a member of some clan—even if it wasn’t the clan she made contact with—at least she could rely on that label. It would provide some indication that she was one of them. But that was impossible in her case. The curse of the ranbren is that they looked neither Neldathi nor Altrerian and cannot pass as either. It was possible, as Antrey had learned during her flight through Tolenor, to remain hidden. But hiding was not an option now, not if she wanted to actually do something with the Neldathi. She would have to confront them with who she was, and what she was, from the first.

  There was also the problem of language. Antrey grew up hearing others speak the dialect of the Kohar, but her outsider status meant she had little opportunity to actually use it herself. Unlike the language Alban taught her that was used in Tolenor, it was difficult to write or read because the meanings of words changed with the pitch and tone used to speak them. She never heard any Neldathi tongues spoken in Tolenor, of course. Over the years, what little grasp she had on the language had been lost. She supposed she could pick it up again. She hoped so, anyway.

  In fact, for all she had read in Alban’s library, very little of it had been about Neldathi society and customs. She remembered even less, and then only the broad strokes of things. She remembered, for instance, that the clans used the colors painted into their black hair as a symbol of clan membership, but could not remember which patterns were unique to each clan. She was having problems even remembering the names of all the clans at this point.

  The more she thought about it, this hole in Alban’s knowledge made little sense. Given the time that had passed since the Rising, there should have been dozens of books written about them as a people. Traders from the Triumvirate had occasionally ventured into the mountains, not to mention the Islanders, who traded freely in their port cities along the Neldathi coast. There had been military expeditions too. She also imagined there must be a detailed set of records from the Sentinels who had been carrying out their grizzly strategy for all these years. Antrey, and most Altrerians, she suspected, knew more about the Azkiri and the Islanders, though neither of them made much impact on daily life.

  All she had to fill in the gaps of her knowledge about the Neldathi were the stereotypes absorbed from the Altrerian culture and the memories of her childhood. Neither filled her with much confidence. In the Altrerian mind, the Neldathi were little more than animals. They lived only to fight each other, scavenge the remains, and take the women and children as slaves. She once read a newspaper story in which a naturalist speculated that the Neldathi were nothing more than well-shorn brothers to the great mountain apes that lived in the frozen caves. She knew that was a myth, a piece that owed more to propaganda than to the reality of anatomy. It was an attempt to put distance between the civilized Altrerians and their barbarian southern cousins, to erase the heritage they shared. And to erase those like her, who were undeniable evidence of that heritage.

  Antrey’s own limited experience taught her that those stereotypes were exaggerations rooted, in some small way, in fact. It was true, of course, that the clans warred against each other almost constantly, linked as they were in uneasy and shifting temporary alliances. She knew now that the flames of those conflicts were fanned, if not lit in the first place, by the Sentinels. But she could not deny that they had some material from which to work when they set their plan into action. At best, the Sentinels could provide a spark, but could not maintain the blaze from year to year and decade to decade. Aside from that knowledge, Antrey put her own bad treatment at the hands of her clansmen to her peculiar status, not to any uncontrollable rage.

  She tried to push those concerns out of her mind as she walked, but it was no use. The best she could manage was to stare up at the cloud-streaked gray sky overhead to try and clear her head.

  Around midday, Antrey came to a small pool formed by the stream she followed as the current slowed and its banks widened. It was not really a pond, and certainly not a lake, but it did provide slow waters from which she might fetch something to eat. In addition, there was a clutch of large boulders on the opposite shore that were clear of snow and would provide a good place to rest for a few moments. The evergreens that crowded the mountainside had thinned considerably in the last day or two. They maintained a respectful distance from the little pool, as if they dared not get to close.

  She jumped across the stream and made her way to the rocks, which clustered near the upstream corner. She sat down, slipped the bottle from her satchel, and took a long drink. What was once snow was now ice-cold water. She gulped it eagerly, knowing that the pool would provide a means to refill it.

  Just as she took the last drink of water, Antrey heard a noise behind her, downstream, that sounded like a violent displacement of limbs and leaves. She turned and saw an elk dive out of the trees on the other side of the stream. Its great antlers were a tangled mess of underbrush ripped from the forest as it ran. Her eyes met those of the elk, which had stopped at the edge of the stream, gasping hard, its breath frosting in the chilled air. After a moment’s pause, it dropped its head and began to lap water from the stream.

  Antrey closed her eyes for just a moment and heard the elk make a terrible screaming sound, like it was crying out in pain. It made her shudder and sent a bolt of pain shooting down her own spine. She opened her eyes and saw the elk, reared up on its hind legs, thrashing its head back and forth. There was an arrow in its neck, just above the shoulder. Antrey had not heard anything to indicate that anyone was around.

  A salvo of three more arrows thwacked into the elk’s flank. It screamed again and tried to move away, upstream back to the trees, but it took only a few faltering steps before it collapsed in the snow. As it gasped for air, the white ground turned red with blood. The beast was trying desperately to live or calling out to die. Antrey wasn’t sure which.

  Antrey was so transfixed by the elk’s plight that she forgot for a moment that the arrows meant that, after all this time, she was no longer alone. She did not hear the further rustling of the trees, but did see first one, then two, then half a dozen Neldathi emerge from the forest and approach the elk.

  They were tall, with just the faintest tint of blue in their white skin. Were they naked, they would nearly blend in with the snowy ground. Each wore multiple layers of animal skins that obscured, but could not hide, that they were strong, powerful men. All had long black hair, which grew from a fringe of scalp at the back of their heads. It twisted in braids that ran halfway down their backs. About halfway down, the black color gave way to a pattern of red, black, and white strips. Three of them carried ornately carved bows, while two others had similar devices slung over their backs. They either had not noticed her or ignored her and approached the elk.

  The other Neldathi, Antrey had thought initially, was unarmed. The tallest of the group, he strode towards the elk, reached inside the layers of his clothing, and pulled out a knife, bigge
r than anything Antrey had ever seen that was not called a sword. In a maneuver that showed years of practice and an abundance of skill, he knelt beside the elk, placed the great blade to its throat, and drew the knife across, ending the beast’s misery. All the while, he said something quickly under his breath.

  Antrey had never seen anything like it in her life. When she was young she had never experienced a hunt or a kill, only the end result. The sight of such a brutally efficient killing shook her to the core. The bottle slipped from her hands and splashed into the pool underneath her. At the noise, the hunters turned and saw her.

  The one that had killed the elk crouched motionless next to it, knife still in hand. The others moved away from the kill and sprang across the stream swiftly, switching their focus. They began to converge on her slowly, two from upstream in the direction of the elk, two others having circled around to come at her from the other direction. She lost sight of the fifth, but within moments she knew she was surrounded. Before it ever occurred to her to try and get away, five well-armed and curious Neldathi had blocked any means of escape.

  She ignored the ones on her side of the stream and tried to make eye contact with the one by the elk. He appeared to be the leader of this hunting party or its senior member. Regardless, he was someone who commanded respect. Maybe by making contact directly with him she might open some line of communication, although she had no idea how to do that. At the very least, maybe he would put the knife away. The way he crouched there, casually displaying the bloody blade, made her think he meant to tell her that it might be her neck that was sliced open next.

  As the others inched slowly closer to her, Antrey could feel their eyes on her, covering every inch of her with their eyes. One of them was close enough that Antrey thought he might have sniffed her, but she quickly dismissed that as a work of her imagination. That was something the barbarian Neldathi of the Altrerian culture would do, but made little sense upon rational examination. They would use every sense available to them, just as she would.