by GJ Kelly
“Beg pardon, milord?” Rollaf asked softly.
“Aye, my friend,” Gawain sighed, turning around to face the ashen and drawn features of the scout, “What is it?”
“Beg pardon, milord, one of the packhorses. Took a fall in its panic. Broke a leg. Terryn’s eased its passing, least we could do for it. We’ve put the packs and bundles on my horse, milord. Won’t matter, if we find this canal. Thought you should know.”
Gawain nodded. “All the other horses are found and sound?”
“Aye milord, found and sound.”
“I’ll ask… no, I’ll order the wizard to perform the rite. I’ll not leave the poor beast alone in this miserable forest. Not here. Not alone.”
“Aye, milord,” Rollaf whispered, his eyes suddenly damp. “Aye.”
And so it was, the rest of the group moving generally northwest as hastily as possible in search of the canal, while Gawain had Allazar perform the rites for the fallen horse. He himself stood off a ways, watching sorrowfully while the wizard chanted just as he had for the fallen men of Callodon on the road to Jarn, until only the softest of ashes swirled gently in the breeze to mark the passing of the unnamed packhorse.
Of course, they had to resume their repetitive step-wise back and forth progress through the ruins as they had when they entered the outskirts from the south. But this time, their progress was made all the more fraught by the terror that the ruins represented. Although softened by centuries of weather and the growth of the trees all around, the horror lay fresh in their minds. No-one, and Gawain suspected not even the horses, would ever forget the sounds of Calhaneth dying. No-one except perhaps Elayeen, walking ahead of them all, Kahla’s arm about her waist, the Gorian guiding her unerringly through the circles of destruction while Jaxon walked a few paces behind.
For three hours they walked, in silence. Further from the centre, life began to return to the woodlands. Insects buzzed. Birds chirped and fluttered. Water gurgled gently in occasional streams, and leaves slowly turning in the approach of autumn rustled in the breezes, the sounds so like the baths to the south they were almost reassuring.
Then there came a low and eerie sound, like the booming of some vast bell.
“Dwarfspit,” Gawain muttered to himself, “What now?”
“Your lady reports nothing dark, Longsword,” Allazar asserted quietly when Gawain pushed through the horses to join the group.
“What was it, do you know?”
“Alas.”
“Arramin?”
“I have a suspicion, my… my lord.”
Gawain noted the tremors still evident in the old wizard’s bandaged hands, the gaunt features, skin drawn tight in the rictus of shock and fear. Arramin’s nerves were hanging by a thread.
“Anything you can tell us might be of help, Serre wizard,” Gawain said softly, though he knew his own expression was probably of no comfort to the old bookworm.
“We are nearing the Canal of Thal-Marrahan, my lord. I am sure, unless… unless my north-needle is in error… but it can’t be, unless the discharges…”
“Wizard Arramin,” Gawain prompted, gently placing a hand on the old man’s bony shoulder dragging the wizard back to reality and away from his frantic tapping of the compass-box, “The sound?”
“Oh, oh dear me, yes. I think… I think it a barge. Driven by the breezes against the wall of the canal.”
And as if in reply, the deep metallic boom rolled through the woodland once more.
“That way,” Allazar pointed.
“Yes, yes, that way,” Arramin agreed, tapping his compass again.
And that way they went, skirting obstacles in their path, until, when a third low boom rolled through the trees, their path became clearer. With a great shuddering sigh, Arramin managed a smile of relief.
“We are beyond the outskirts of the city, my lords. We are beyond the outer circle of Calhaneth.”
And so they were, another broad avenue ran north before them, narrower than the great south road they had travelled, but an avenue nevertheless, free from obstruction, and brighter thanks to the thinner canopy overhead.
“How far to the canal, Serre wizard?” Gawain asked urgently, anxious to put as much distance between them and the city as possible.
“A mile, my lord, just a mile.”
“Then let’s move…” Gawain paused while another low boom rang down the avenue from dead ahead. “… Let’s move quickly.”
None could possibly object to such a command. Elayeen’s horse was brought forward and she climbed nimbly into the saddle, and once Jaxon had handed up her bow, they set off, striding quickly, almost breaking into a run, but refraining for the sake of Arramin. Pigeons and crows flapped away in alarm at their approach, and given the horror receding behind them no-one cared, not even Gawain, about the noise of their of own passage through this part of the forest.
Minutes later, another deep and metallic booming, louder this time, and a stiff breeze carried a hint of fresh water and something else, something vaguely familiar. The sound spoke of something immense and metallic, and if Gawain had trouble imagining what lay ahead of them, poor Kahla and Jaxon must have had no clue. It mattered not, not really, Gawain knew. They would deal with whatever lay ahead when they got there. The only thing that mattered was leaving Calhaneth behind. Forever.
It grew brighter ahead, much brighter, a light which spoke of a large open space where the sun’s warmth wasn’t blocked by leaf and branch, and as the light got brighter so their pace quickened, and even Arramin broke into a jog, spurring them all on. Another great metallic clang, the sound long, fading slowly like an immense bell vibrating, urging them on, giving them all hope of a speedy departure from this dread place.
Then the trees thinned, the avenue ended, and they found themselves at the edge of a large stone-lined lake, rectangular, at least a hundred yards across and a hundred and fifty long. In it, moored by slender chains, a dozen or more long and slender barges, metallic, dull grey like the old and worn steel of Jaxon’s ancient Gorian shortsword.
Another boom, and they saw the reason for it. One of the barges was secured by only one chain at the stern, and it had swung around on the breezes, its bow even now swinging slowly away from the blue-stone dockside it had struck.
The docksides around the mooring-lake were broad, a thirty-yard expanse of worn blue-stone blocks whose joints fit so well they could hardly be seen. But here, unlike the fire-washed Wheel of Thought daily bleached of all life by whatever power smouldered in the tower, here lichens flourished, and mosses, and where light fell around the tree line, ferns and bracken and grass. The large expanse of water and its wind-blown wavelets lapping around the ancient hulls gave the air a fresh, clean odour, with hints of grease and metal within it.
“This is the terminus,” Arramin sighed, and Gawain eyed his companions.
Elayeen of course saw nothing but shapes in the grey backdrop of her world, and her expression was as impassive as it had been since Eldengaze had enslaved her on the road to Jarn. But everyone else was a picture of hope and relief. Hope that they would soon be leaving this place a memory never to be recalled, and relief at finding water where it should be, and these great barges still apparently in good order.
“The lock gates are yonder, my lords,” Arramin pointed north, towards the far side of the lake, and the dull metal barrier that stood closed there.
“Lock gates?”
“Aye, my lord. They give access to the great water road beyond, which is the Canal of Thal-Marrahan. Lock gates are used to keep water levels in sections of the canal even. First, we must obtain a barge, and then propel it to the lock gates. One of us must then open the lock gates, the barge passes through into the canal, and the gates are closed. Then onwards we travel.”
Gawain eyed the metal barge, watching as breezes swung it towards the dock again, waiting until after the boom and ringing of its gentle collision faded.
“What about that one? It’s closest. The rest ar
e all chained in the middle of the lake.”
“That one, Longsword? There’s no telling how long ago it slipped its chains. It could have been banging and scraping against the dockside for a hundred years or more.”
Gawain shrugged. “Off you go then, Allazar, and fetch one more to your liking. I know nothing of boats. Nor of metal that floats and shows no sign of rust or tarnish.”
“It is elven steel, my lord,” Arramin explained, “It does not rust like iron nor tarnish and decay like ordinary steel from the forges of men.”
Gawain folded his arms and eyed the old wizard dubiously.
“Your sword is much older,” Allazar prompted quietly.
“Hmmmf. Well, whatever the nature of the metal boat, I’ll leave it to you two to fetch one over. I’m a horseman, not a sailor.”
“I too,” Tyrane muttered, and Rollaf and Terryn stepped forward to stand by their captain.
“Alas Serres,” Jaxon apologised, eyeing the expanse of water between themselves and the moored barges. “Kahla and I cannot swim.”
“And certainly Elayeen cannot,” Gawain asserted.
What piers there might once have been to give access to the moorings had long since rotted away, though steps and metal posts showed that they had once existed.
“The problem is far from insurmountable,” Allazar announced softly. “Come, Master Arramin, I shall need your help, I am not familiar with these vehicles either.”
Gawain watched the two wizards walk along the side of the dock, and around the near corner, heading towards the barge swinging on its chain.
“Serres, how are we to make these things travel?” Jaxon asked nervously, the strain of Calhaneth lingering upon them all.
“I don’t know,” Gawain confessed. “I’d not heard of a canal before, nor a barge. I half suspected such things didn’t exist. You, Tyrane?”
“I’ve heard talk of a canal running between Mornland and Arrun, my lord. They said something about a barge-man, pushing the thing along with a pole or towing it along with rope and horse.”
“Pushing it with a pole?” Gawain stared at the captain, and then the barges. “That thing must be sixty feet long and fifteen across.”
Tyrane shrugged. “That’s what they said. And towing it, with rope and horse.”
“And that’s supposed to get us to Ostinath faster than horseback?”
They watched as the two wizards approached the barge swinging on its chain, and when the bow struck the dockside, Allazar leapt nimbly aboard, holding out his staff for Arramin to grasp. With a little clumsy effort, the two wizards were soon aboard the vessel, and Allazar shoved hard against the dock with his stick.
The barge swung away from the dock, its single mooring chain clinking as it went suddenly slack, and those on land watched agog as Allazar thrust his staff deep into the water, pushing the barge around further. Arramin, meanwhile made for the aft end of the vessel, and swung a large lever back and forth. In a very short time, another ringing boom sounded across the moorings when the barge struck its neighbour. In the bows, Allazar reached out to grab hold of the moored barge, and with a short length of chain secured the two together.
“Will the horses tolerate such travel?” Tyrane asked quietly.
“They must, though it’ll be as much of a novelty for us as well as for them.”
“What are they doing now?”
Gawain shrugged. “Probably looking for one containing a book of instruction on its use.”
More deep booming, as the two wizards moved from barge to barge, though whether they were looking for some particular characteristic or simply heading for the one closest to the party on land, none could say. But at length, the two of them boarded the last in line of the foremost row, and slipped the mooring chains.
It was while the two wizards were manoeuvring the barge towards the dockside that Gawain realised that the vessel seemed identical front and rear, as though either end might be the bow or the stern. The long-handled lever Arramin was working had a twin at the other end where Allazar was pushing now with a long and slender pole found on board, perhaps three times the length of his Dymendin staff.
“We’d better meet them, I don’t know if they’ll be able to bring that thing to us,” Gawain muttered, and the group moved slowly north along the dockside, watching as the barge moved slowly towards the land.
There were steel bollards fitted with hooked shackles dotted along the dockside, and when the barge bumped and clanged against the stone, Allazar handed a length of chain down to Gawain. It took a moment to understand what was required, and Gawain had to heave the barge forward until he could slip one of the bollard hooks into a link in the chain and secure it. When Tyrane had secured Arramin’s end of the vessel, the wizards stepped up onto dry land.
“There. It is done,” Allazar announced, leaning on his staff.
Gawain looked down into the vessel. A metal grating walkway seemed to run the length of the barge on each side, and then some two feet below that lay more metal gratings and plates forming the main deck of the vessel. There was a small covered area each end of the barge, squat deckhouses, with metal benches on which to sit, and strange-looking levers and wheels fitted to large steel panels. His impression that either end could serve as the ‘front’ appeared quite correct, and he assumed from the description of the canal Arramin had given that this was to obviate the need for turning the barge around.
“How do we get the horses down there?”
“Ah.”
“There should be a ramp, my lords, the books spoke of the barges being able to transport warriors and their horses, as well as cargo and livestock.”
Allazar stepped down onto the barge, and then down onto the main deck. Near the centre of the barge he gave a sudden exclamation, and bent to heave upon one of the metal gratings. It lifted easily, and he hooked it into place on the inside of the walkway.
Gawain eyed it doubtfully. It sloped gently enough, but the barge was moving, and even though the movement was slight, the horses would need gentle handling. “Best unload the packhorses first,” he declared, “We’ll carry the supplies aboard ourselves. Hai, Gwyn!”
Gwyn clopped forward on the blue-stone dock and gazed at the metal monstrosity in the water. She snorted, and then uttered a quiet squeal, a sound she hadn’t made in a long time.
“I know, Ugly, I know. I don’t want to go down there either,” Gawain rubbed her ears gently. “But we have to. We have to leave here, and if you come down with me, the other horses will come down too.”
Gwyn snorted again, and then nickered, and pressed her head into his chest.
“I know. But once we get going, it’ll probably be better than swimming, and you know you like swimming. Come on. I’ll go first, you big baby.”
And trying hard to quell his own nervousness, Gawain stepped down onto the walkway, and softly called Gwyn forward, backing down the ramp as she moved to the edge of the dockside. She swung her great head to the left and to the right, blue eyes wide, the whites showing clearly.
“Come on, Ugly, look, it’s safe,” Gawain stepped further back down the ramp and onto the level deck, and with a sudden clatter of hooves Gwyn lurched forward and down, down the ramp, shoes skidding on the metal until she made the level deck and bobbed her head, and turned to face the ramp as if considering running up it to the safety of the dock.
“Hai Gwyn! See! Wasn’t so bad, big ugly baby. Come, let’s get you up the end out of the way and get that saddle off.”
It took the best part of half an hour to get the horses and provisions aboard the barge; by far the longest time was in manhandling the packages and sacks removed from the packhorses. Once the small herd had seen Gwyn go down into the monstrous maw of the clanging beast, and then saw her head bobbing safely from the bow end, their own fears seemed to fade. A little.
Arramin stood in the deckhouse at the bow, describing the levers and wheels and their function to Allazar. Elayeen sat on the roof of that deckhouse area, he
r feet dangling above the walkway, casting her gaze all around while Kahla sat quietly to her side, describing the scene.
“I must open the lock,” Arramin announced when all were aboard and the ramp taken down. “Are you sure, Master Allazar, you know what to do?”
“I am, though I will need a pair of stout fellows with strong arms on the poles.”
“I will gladly help, Serres,” Jaxon declared, “Though I don’t know what to do.”
“I will show you, Serre Jaxon,” Allazar smiled, though not surprisingly given their proximity to Calhaneth the smile did not reach his eyes.
“Dwarfspit,” Gawain sighed. “What must we do?”
So, while Arramin left the barge, slipped the chains from the dockside and tossed them noisily back aboard, Allazar described how Gawain and Jaxon were to stand either side of the bow, prod the long poles into the bottom of the lake, and walk down the sides of the barge pushing them along.
They shared a sceptical look, hefting the poles, and then climbed up onto the walkways and took their positions. Allazar himself walked to the rear end of the barge, and stood behind the deckhouse, holding the long lever Gawain had seen Arramin manipulate earlier. Allazar waved, Gawain and Jaxon prodded their poles hard into the bottom of the lake, and began walking towards Allazar.
They both stumbled a few times, but with the guardsmen of Callodon quieting the horses and all of them looking on nervously, Gawain and Jaxon redoubled their efforts.
“Now you must carry the poles back to the bow and repeat the process,” Allazar announced when they reached him.
When they turned, they saw Arramin had reached the north corner of the dock and was walking towards the grey steel gates in the centre. Their pole-walking had propelled them away from the dockside, and to their surprise, the barge was moving under Allazar’s direction straight towards the gates.