by Angus Watson
The footprint was fresh, so she’d be on them in moments, and shortly afterwards the rest of the Owsla would catch them and that would be that. They were making good speed now, the Mushroom Men, for a group of refugees with two children and at least one older person. They hadn’t slept long the previous night, poor things, but soon they’d all be dead and a great deal happier.
Even though Keef and Bjarni were meant to be rearguard, it was Finnbogi who spotted the Calnian Owsla first—one of them, at least.
“Look!” he shouted.
They turned. Standing on the brow of a hill three hundred paces back was a solitary woman clad in leather leggings, breechcloth and short jerkin. She was too far for him to see her features, but by her shape, stance and outfit this had to be one of the Owsla.
The Hardworkers held their breath. Finnbogi expected a gang of similar warriors to crest the rise and surround the lone figure at any moment, but instead the woman waved cheerily, then turned and ran back the way she’d come.
“She must be the forward scout. I’m going to catch her.” And Keef was gone, sprinting back along the path.
“Come back, you idiot!” shouted Gunnhild, but Keef ignored her. She shook her head. “Finn, run ahead and tell Wulf what we saw. Everyone else, let’s speed up and see if we can get somewhere defendable before the rest of them catch up.”
“What about Keef?”
“He’s an idiot.”
Keef ran back a while later and said, “She’s gone. Vaporised into nowhere. I could see miles down the track and she wasn’t anywhere. Are we sure we saw her?”
Paloma Pronghorn skidded to a halt.
“They’re five miles ahead.”
Good, thought Sofi Tornado. The sooner the Hardworkers were wiped out and this mission was over, the better. She was looking forward to Calnia and a few weeks of normality executing people in the Plaza of Innowak.
She thought of speeding everyone up, but, no, she wanted to begin the return journey as soon as the Mushroom Men were dead, so there was no need to exhaust them with a sprint.
“Pronghorn, run ahead and keep an eye on them, but keep back and don’t kill any until the rest of us get there, understood?”
“Understood!”
Finnbogi jogged along, sweating like Frossa the Deep Minded at the top of a hill. Wulf had told him to toss his pack and he’d done so with glee, but then Freydis had been falling behind, so he’d picked her up, copying Erik who had Ottar on his shoulders.
Judging by the song she was making up as they ran, Freydis wasn’t aware that they were running for their lives.
Oh a robin a robin is lovely too,
With an orange chest and speckly poo
He’ll sing a song to make you smile
Even if you’re Finnbogi and you’ve run a mile
With a girl on your shoulders who’s hard to bear
Cos she’s got heavy knees and heavier hair—
“Here, I’ll carry her for a while,” said Wulf, catching up to him.
No, no, it’s no effort, I can take her for miles more, Finnbogi wanted to say. Instead, he stopped, panting and unable to speak.
Wulf plucked her off his shoulders, and Finnbogi staggered.
“Come on, Finn, we’re nearly there!” said Erik, leaping round and running backwards. Hugin and Munin, who hadn’t left his heels since he’d picked up Ottar, jinked about to keep clear of his huge feet.
He was hardly underweight, Finn’s dad, and he was over forty years old, and he had Ottar on his shoulders, but he had a spring in his step and not so much as a bead of sweat on his tanned brow.
Ottar bounced happily.
The “there” that Erik was referring to was a wide river, which, according to him, was just ahead.
They ran on. White cloud rolled in. The sky stayed bright as the land became darker and darker, which was odd. Finnbogi hoped it wasn’t going to rain again. He didn’t want to die on a rainy day.
He saw Bodil ahead and ran to catch up with her.
The path ended in a wooden jetty protruding into the widest river that Sassa Lipchewer had ever seen. It must have been a hundred and fifty paces across.
“This is Rock River,” announced Erik the Angry, swinging Ottar the Moaner onto the ground. Ottar’s racoons trilled admonishment at him for being out of reach for so long. “There was a village last time I was here. I thought they’d have boats.”
Mature trees with small, whispery, yellow-green leaves leant over both banks up and down the river. The new growth in the Hardworkers’ immediate vicinity, the jetty and a gap in the trees on the far side of the river were the only traces that there’d been a settlement here. As well as the lack of village remains, there was also a glaring absence of boats.
“So we swim?” asked Wulf.
The idea did not thrill Sassa. The river was silty brown and swift after the recent rains and, perhaps most ominously of all, slicing through the surface towards the centre of the river were the fins of three large fish.
“We don’t swim,” said Erik, “because of them.” He pointed at the fins.
“What are they?”
“Sharks.”
“Sharks?” said Wulf. “Sharks are monsters that live in the salt sea.”
“And big rivers. This village used to worship them, so they’d feed them. That’s why there were always so many here, and by the looks of it they didn’t leave when the people did.”
“Only three of them.”
“That we can see. They spend most of their time underwater.”
“Ah. And they attack people?”
“The Rock River tribe fed them live sacrifices, so they learnt that humans are food.”
“I see. How big are they?”
“The big ones are double the length of a tall man. The smaller ones aren’t much bigger than a big dog, but still big enough to kill you.”
“Spunk on a skunk,” said Sassa. “Will they attack a boat?”
“I’m pretty sure they won’t.”
“So we’d better get going with Keef’s,” said Wulf.
“But that’ll only fit two.” Sassa shook her head.
“So we get started. Chnob! Chnob! Where’s Chnob?”
The bearded man came puffing along the track, ahead of the rearguard Bjarni and Keef. Sassa expected the Calnian Owsla to be at their heels, but she could see two hundred paces up the path and all was clear. For now.
“Keef, can you fit Ottar and Freydis in your boat at the same time?”
“With me as well?”
“Yes.”
“Across this river?” Keef was prolonging the moment of his boat being elevated from quite useful to vital.
“We’re in something of a hurry, Keef. We need to shuttle us all before—”
“Why didn’t you say! Come on, let’s go!”
Keef wrenched the boat from Chnob’s back, dropped it off the jetty and set off with Ottar and Freydis in the bow, paddling like a fury. Two more fins appeared next to the three holding place in the middle of the current. Other than that, the sharks didn’t seem to pay them any mind.
“Treelegs, you’re next in the boat,” said Wulf. “You paddle across carrying Keef and let Keef paddle back. That’ll be the form from now.”
“No,” said Thyri.
“There’s no time to argue. We’re going in age order, apart from me.”
“And you?” asked Sassa.
“I’m going last.”
Sassa’s signed. There’d be no arguing with him and, besides, annoyingly, it was the right thing for the leader to do.
“We should send Hird across first,” said Gurd Girlchaser.
“Who’s older out of you and Gunnhild, Gurd?” asked Sassa.
“Gurd is forty. Both Erik and I are a good bit older than him,” said Gunnhild. “I don’t mind waiting.”
Wow, thought Sassa. She would have put Gurd at the same age at least as Gunnhild and Erik as ten years younger. The years had not been kind to the sour-faced Hardw
orker Gurd but, then again, as her mother had always told her, ugly thoughts make you ugly.
“Gurd, we’ve had this chat a couple of times now,” said Wulf, sounding a lot more grown up at twenty-five years old than Gurd ever would. “There is no Hird.”
“But the Hird will paddle faster, we’ll get more across. And the Owsla will be here any minute. Better if more useful people survive.”
“Well, it’s all moot now,” Wulf sighed, looking over Gurd’s shoulder “Because here they come.”
Gurd leapt around, terror on his face. “Where? I can’t—”
“I’m joking,” said Wulf. “And much as we’ll need heroes like you on the other side, we will be going in age order.”
“What do you think, Garth?” Gurd snarled.
“I agree with Wulf,” said Garth Anvilchin, who was younger than Bjarni Chickenhead, Keef the Berserker, Gurd Girlchaser, Erik the Angry and Gunnhild Kristlover.
“Who’s next?” hollered Keef, paddling back across the river with exaggerated, mighty strokes.
Wulf nodded at Thyri Treelegs. She jogged to the jetty.
Sassa waited her turn, watching the path to the east. After Thyri it was Finnbogi. Sassa would have enjoyed his false protests about wanting to wait until last if it had not delayed them vital seconds. In the end it had been her who’d shouted: “Just get in the fucking boat, Finnbogi!”
He had, ashen-faced, and she’d felt guilty.
“What about Astrid?” she asked Erik as they watched Finnbogi paddle across while Keef yelled technique-improving commands at him.
Erik pointed to the north, where the giant bear was clambering out of the river, pulling a thrashing shark almost as long as herself by its tail. The bear swung the shark around her head a couple of times, whacked it against a tree, then set about eating it.
“She looks after herself,” said Erik.
Bodil was next, then it was Sassa. Several of the sleek, grey fish passed under the canoe, twisting as if to get a better look and show her their horrible mouths. She’d never seen such evil-looking creatures, with their repulsively strong-looking, bendy bodies, ridiculous amounts of teeth and eyes that looked right into your soul and said: “I don’t care about your soul, I want to bite you in half and eat your guts.”
Twice her paddle struck a yucksomely springy but solid shark’s back, but the terrifying creatures allowed them to glide above unmolested, and soon she was standing with Finnbogi, Bodil and the children on the other bank as Keef zoomed back across.
“Where’s Thyri?” she asked.
“Scouting ahead,” said Finnbogi.
“And you didn’t go with her?”
“No. I’m looking after Bodil and the children here.”
Erik had one nervous eye on the Hardworkers ferrying each other across the Rock River, and the other on the track they’d come along. He guessed that the forward scout must have been Paloma Pronghorn, the fastest person in the world. But just how far ahead of the others had she been?
He closed his eyes and tried communicating with the sharks again, in case the Owsla came and he needed to swim the river. Again he succeeded, but the answer was the same—a primitive, fishy invitation to jump in and be eaten.
Still the Owsla didn’t come and finally only he, Gunnhild and Wulf were left and it was his turn to cross.
He turned to Gunnhild, knowing she’d expect him to insist that she took his place. He almost did, but then decided it would be more fun to see the look on her face when he said “see ya!” and jumped into the boat. So he did that.
As Sassa watched Keef power back across the Rock River to pick up Gunnhild, Ottar groaned loudly.
“What’s he saying, Freydis?” asked Sassa.
“One of the Calnian Owsla is over there, hiding in a tree.”
“Over where?”
“Up the road on the other side. Can you see that taller tree where the track goes out of sight over the hill?”
“Yes.”
“She’s in that.”
“He’s sure?”
Freydis gave her a “when is he not sure?” look.
“Root a coot,” said Sassa, scanning the trees. She couldn’t see anybody, but the thickly leaved tree could have hidden twenty Owsla.
When Keef and Gunnhild pushed off and Wulf was left on his own, she saw a figure drop lithely from the tree and saunter towards the jetty. One part of Sassa was terrified for her husband, another miffed that a lissom lady was sashaying so sexily towards him.
Paloma Pronghorn watched from the branches of a leafy tree as the Mushroom Men shuttled across in their canoe. It was a speedy little vessel, for one not powered by a magically strengthened Calnian Owsla.
She’d been told not to kill any of them until the others got there, and she didn’t fancy it anyway. Odd. She wasn’t mad about killing at the best of times, but today the idea of slaughtering those funny looking people repulsed her, even if Sofi Tornado was going to be pissed off that she’d let them cross the river.
But what was she going to do, ask them to wait? No, Sofi had told her to keep back and not to kill them, and that’s what she’d do.
Having thought that, she was intrigued by these weird looking people that they’d followed for so long. She wanted to speak to at least one of them, to hear what he sounded like as much as anything. So she waited until the second to last one had disembarked in the tiny canoe, then leapt down and walked along the track.
The Mushroom Man smiled at her; an easy, genuine smile. He was tall, one of the tallest men she’d seen, even though he hadn’t looked the tallest when the others were standing next to him. His hair was the colour of corn, golden even in the drab day and curled in a way that had been in fashion when she’d first arrived in Calnia but was now seen in only the most backward provinces and on Calnian youngsters who were trying to be ironic.
His skin was pale but he didn’t look ill. He looked supremely healthy in fact, with big white teeth not unlike a buffalo’s. He was well muscled, more so than any of the women of the Owsla apart from Chogolisa Earthquake. He had shaggy boots and the leather trousers that a male Calnian warrior might wear, but his jacket was strangely padded and his weapon looked like an enlarged smith’s hammer with a head of iron—but that was impossible; nodules of iron were never as large as that weighty looking lump.
His eyes were maybe the oddest part. They were blue, strikingly so, like lake ice in the sun. He held her gaze as she approached, not even glancing at her figure. So he was obviously homosexual, which was a shame, as despite his startling appearance he was an attractive man. Not as perfect as Kimaman, who’d been Calnia’s finest, but not a long way off.
“Hello,” she said, “I’m—”
“Paloma Pronghorn. The fast one.”
“Well deduced.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Wulf the Fat.”
“The Fat?” She looked down to his midriff and back to those blue eyes.
“It’s because I have a fat cock.”
She shook her head and blinked at him.“… Do you?” she stammered.
He grinned. “Not really. It’s because I was a fat kid. Got the name then.”
“Oh!” A joke! She laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t expect you Mushroom Men to be funny.”
“Some of us aren’t.”
“In fact I expected you to be really stupid.”
“We’re not exactly geniuses, but why did you think we’d be stupid?”
“Because the Goachica had to feed you and clothe you for a hundred years.”
“They didn’t have to.”
“So you let them even though they didn’t need to? I can’t decide if that makes you more or less stupid.”
“I’ve often wondered that myself. So … are you going to kill me now?“
“No. I’m waiting for the others.”
“And they’ll kill us?”
“They will. They enjoy it more than me.”
“I see.”
“But you shouldn’t worry abo
ut death. You’ll be reincarnated before you know it. You might come back as something great, maybe even Calnian Owsla.”
“Lucky me.”
“You mock, but you’d love it. We’re the most powerful people in the world.”
“Just how fast can you run? Are you really as fast as a pronghorn?”
“Quite a lot faster.”
“How?”
“I put one leg in front of the other, then repeat.”
“No, how did you get your … talents?“
“Magic.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“I guess not. I don’t know how we got our powers. They made us eat things and smoke some odd things when we were young, so I’ve always assumed that was the alchemy that gave us our magic. I’ve asked a couple of times but the warlocks are secretive.”
“I see. And why are you so keen to kill us?”
“A prophecy from the empress. Pale-skinned people are going to destroy the world. That’s you.”
“You think? The fourteen of us?”
“It’s not my prophecy. But you’re the only pale-skinned people. Plus I’ve seen the wasteful way you build, and you must have hunted far too much because there are hardly any animals in the woods around your town. Maybe it’s your descendants who are going to destroy the world, but you’ve made a good start.”
“Do you know where we come from?”
“Yes. I just said. I’ve been there.” Paloma glanced over Wulf the Fat’s shoulder. The older woman had disembarked and the man was paddling back. Another of the Hardworkers, also pale-haired, was pacing the bank and watching them, raising and lowering her bow. Paloma Pronghorn made sure that Wulf was between herself and the archer. She’d be able to dodge an arrow if she saw it coming, but it was best to be safe.
“A hundred years ago our ancestors travelled from thousands of miles away,” said the Mushroom Man, “across what you call the Wild Salt Sea. There are thousands more like us where we came from. Hundreds of thousands. Millions even. All with pale skin.”
The canoe bumped alongside the jetty at the same moment as Wulf’s eyes widened at the sight of something behind her. She turned and saw Sofi Tornado leading the Owsla over the rise, with Talisa White-tail on one shoulder and the huge shape of Chogolisa Earthquake looming behind.