You Die When You Die

by Angus Watson

  It was almost like someone, Finnbogi, for example, was killing all the people he didn’t like. Ridiculous theory, of course, when he’d had nothing to do with any of their deaths and she’d topped two of them herself, but still, he’d been nearby every time …

  “We’re part of the Calnian empire,” said Galenar. “We’re meant to be a semi-independent tribe that pays tribute to Calnia, but really we are very much what one might call their bitches. Calnia has ordered us to kill you, so we do, with no respect to your spirits, your spirit animals or your gods. We don’t know who or what you are, so we really should not kill you as if we were gods ourselves, dropping wanton death from a great height. That would be evil. So, I am sorry that one of yours has died, and, honestly, I’m more sorry that so many of ours have, too. However, we see it as our duty to help you to escape the Calnians.”

  “Provided we can get away with it,” added Massbak.

  “That is a secondary consideration, but, yes, our tribe must not find out.”

  Wulf gripped the young Scrayling’s shoulder. “Good news and we’re grateful.”

  The friendly Water Divided tribesmen pointed out the two lines of boats crossing the Water Mother and explained that there were two ropes across the river, strung between islands, for people to pull boats across.

  “I knew it! But why two ropes?” asked Finnbogi.

  “Because you can cross the river in two directions,” said Galenar.

  Finnbogi coloured a little.

  “How come they don’t break?” asked Keef.

  “We make good ropes.”

  “How?”

  “Not now, Keef,” said Wulf.

  The eastern ends of both ropes were in the main Water Divided settlement, so they couldn’t start there. However, said Galenar, they could find boats further south, paddle these across the narrow channel to the first island, then carry their canoes along the island to the rope, wait for a gap, and go. Once on the rope, provided they didn’t arse about, they should look like any other boat. On the far bank they’d find a small settlement.

  “The Other-Siders won’t be a problem. Anyone bright or capable moves to this side of the river. The Other-Siders won’t do anything except gawp at you.”

  “What’s the best way down the cliff?” asked Wulf.

  “The best way is to the north. There’s a good path there. However, unfortunately for you, it runs down to the main village and is visible for most of the way to people who’ll be working in the fields or out performing their morning rituals. You’ll have to go back the way we came, down the secret path.”

  “Great,” said Erik the Angry.

  Chapter Ten

  She Just Keeps Rolling Along

  “Big cat’s pissflaps!” said Paloma Pronghorn. “I thought their prints were odd. They’ve done the walking back in their own footsteps thing. Why didn’t I pick that up?” She shook her head. “Outfoxed by Mushroom Men. Whatever power animal made us clever, we need to find it again, now.”

  “We’re near the Water Divided tribe’s chief settlement,” said Sofi Tornado. “We’ll press on and see what they know.”

  “Have you seen the Mushroom Men?” demanded Sofi when they arrived in the centre of the village shortly afterwards. A group of Water Divided seniors had assembled hastily to meet them.

  “You hold on right there!” A small, purple-faced warlock with about six hairs of beard broke from the group and bustled up to the Calnian captain. “There are protocols. You may be the Owsla but you cannot march into our territory and—”

  Sofi Tornado swung her axe backhanded into his jaw. He flew for a couple of paces, crashed down onto packed earth and lay still.

  Yup, thought the captain, I am definitely weaker. She’d had to put strength into the blow. A few days before it would have needed only a flick. The lack of tarantula hawk wasp was telling.

  Another idiot charged, a woman red-faced with rage, presumably the little man’s wife or daughter. The Owsla captain stepped aside, tripped and pushed her towards Chogolisa Earthquake. The giant Calnian encircled the Water Divided woman’s head with the long, strong fingers of one hand, and looked at Sofi.

  Having her head crushed like a robin’s egg would have been a fitting punishment for attacking the Owsla. However, Sofi shook her head. Chogolisa shrugged and let the woman go.

  “Everybody calm down!” cried a wise-looking older fellow. “I am Chief Dyas Bellvoo. Calnian Owsla, please don’t harm any more of my people. And my people, stay back and stay quiet. The Mushroom Men are camped on yonder bluff.” He pointed at the cliff to the east. “Following the request of a Calnian runner, I have sent a squad to kill them. They should have returned by now. I was about to send scouts to find out what has happened. Perhaps you would like to go instead?”

  Canny, thought Sofi. She’d bumped off one of his tribe in front of him, and instead of panicking he was not only controlling his own tribe, but ordering her about, too. They didn’t make any old idiot their leader, these little northern tribes.

  “One of your warriors will show us the way.”

  “All the available warriors are already up there.”

  “Then you will show us the way.” She may have been lacking some of her normal aggression, but there was only so much that Sofi Tornado was prepared to put up with. “And while we are gone, you,” she pointed at the most capable looking member of their greeting gang, “will find me any parts of the following animals: caribou, diamondback rattlesnake, tarantula hawk wasp, burrowing owl, pronghorn, broad-tailed hummingbird, mantis shrimp and chuckwalla.”

  “Uh, what?” said the slack-jawed provincial, “what do you …? Caribou? Uh?”

  “Never mind,” she sighed, “Yoki Choppa, stay here and see what you can find in their stores, from the river merchants, whatever. Talisa, stay with him. And find the biggest canoe you can. If Innowak is with us for once our mission will be complete and we’ll be heading down the Water Mother to Calnia before noon.”

  Bjarni enjoyed the climb down the cliff even less than he’d enjoyed the climb up it, but watching Freydis and Ottar descend like happy chipmunks helped. If two children weren’t scared, then neither was he. At one point he missed a handhold, almost fell and had to swallow hard to prevent himself from vomiting in terror, but apart from that it wasn’t too bad.

  Erik the Angry came down last, white as a winter hare in a blizzard, insisting he’d enjoyed the descent.

  Galenar and Massbak led them through the woods. They ducked under branches and held back bushes for each other, following the stony course of a dry stream. The woods either side were busy with turkeys which freaked Bjarni out with their sudden fluttering and gobblings. The females skedaddled but the fat males stood their ground and fanned their tails pompously.

  At the edge of the woods they waited while the two Scraylings checked that there was nobody about, then headed out, blinking in the morning light, onto a wooden pontoon which was chock-a-block with neatly arranged, upside-down canoes. Below the pontoon the muddy river churned.

  Wulf insisted on hugging Galenar and Massbak, which Bjarni thought was appropriate, but which the two young Water Divided tribesmen did not seem to enjoy at all, and then the Wootah tribe were off, in two boats.

  The current was stronger than it looked, but it was only twenty paces to the first island and they powered across easily enough.

  Safely ashore, they waved a final goodbye to their two Scrayling helpers and carried their boats up the island to join the rope.

  Bjarni crouched in the bushes next to Wulf while they waited for a gap, watching the technique of the people pulling themselves across.

  The east to west rope ran through a hoop on a post at the end of their island, twenty paces from their hiding place. The west to east rope was a couple of hundred of paces to the north, running between a different set of islands.

  “They’ll be able to see us from the other rope,” said Bjarni.

  “Yes,” said Wulf, “but to check us out they’
ll have to let go, come down on the current, catch our rope, catch us up, then go all the way back across on our rope, then back across on theirs. That’s too much of a shag; we’re not that interesting. Here, we’ve got a gap. Let’s go.”

  Finnbogi waited while Wulf, Sassa, Erik, Bjarni and Freydis launched in one boat, then carried the second forward with Keef, Bodil, Gunnhild, Thyri and Ottar.

  “I’ll go at the back,” he announced.

  Keef shook his head. “Ah-ah. Strongest at the front, that’s me. Second strongest goes at the back.”

  “Which is me,” said Thyri.

  “Are you sure? I listened to the tips you gave me when we crossed the Rock River and I—”

  “Quiet, Finnbogi,” said Gunnhild. “The man who is never silent utters many futile words; if not checked, he will often sing himself to harm.”

  The Calnian Owsla reached the top of the cliff path. Morningstar was distraught. She wasn’t exhausted by any means, or even tired after the climb, but her legs felt like they’d done some work. Usually she’d have to run a hundred miles to feel like this. Normal people must feel even worse than this after a bit of exercise, she thought. How awful to be them. She could not wait to be back in Calnia with their power animals.

  “Where are you, Mushroom Men?” she called. “Come out, come out to play!”

  “Nearly there!” called Chief Dyas Bellvoo. “But it’s something of a worry that we haven’t passed my own people coming back.”

  Sofi Tornado nodded, grim-faced. She didn’t look at all tired, Morningstar noticed. She looked mean as a bobcat whose tail has been in a snare for a day and a night. There’d be no mucking about this time. The Mushroom Men would all be dead moments after they caught up with them.

  They jogged along the cliff-top path until they came to a clearing full of dead people in warrior garb. None of them were Mushroom Men.

  “Who are these demons?” said Chief Dyas Bellvoo, staring at his attack squad, voice catching in his throat.

  “Where are these demons?” snarled Sofi.

  “There they are,” piped up Sitsi Kestrel, standing on a rocky promontory. A pair of young whitecap eagles was gliding lazily above her. Beyond were the brown river, green trees and blue sky of the Water Mother’s immense valley. She was pointing at the two canoes near the beginning of the rope-pull across the Water Mother.

  “You’re sure?” asked Sofi.

  “It’s so strange,” the little woman blinked her big eyes, “I can’t see clearly, but I am very nearly certain it’s them.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  “But if they get to the other side of the Water Mother …?” asked Talisa White-tail.

  “They won’t get far.”

  “But Calnians don’t cross …”

  “We’re the Owsla. We go where we want.”

  They ran, leaving Chief Dyas Bellvoo standing among his dead.

  Pulling the boat across was trickier than it looked. The vast body of brown water was more like moving land than a river, determined to carry the tiny canoes downstream on its eternal flow. It did not make for easy boat handling, and by the time Finnbogi and the others in the second boat worked out that pulling against the current was as important as pulling across it, the first boat was a hundred paces ahead.

  “This will not do!” declared Keef. “Come on everybody. Heave! Heave!”

  Finnbogi pulled until his arms hurt. He wanted to slow the pace, but Bodil, in front of him in the boat, was pulling on the rope with lean, tanned arms, as if she’d been born on the river.

  He still hadn’t had the talk with her that Sassa had insisted that he must, but Bodil had stopped pestering him, so he reckoned that ignoring her must have done the trick just as effectively as telling her he didn’t like her, with a lot less meanness to her and a lot less effort on his part. So everybody was happy.

  By the time they’d reached the second island, perhaps halfway across the river, they’d narrowed the gap with the forward Wootah boat to fifty paces.

  “Perhaps we should reduce the pull rate a little for the next section?” said Finnbogi as they manoeuvred around the rope’s holding post. “We’ll have a long way to walk on the other side and—”

  “Look behind you, Boggy,” said Keef.

  He turned. “Loakie’s cock …” he said.

  The first Owsla canoe was gaining on the Mushroom Men like a pack of wolves running down a broken-legged buffalo calf. Chogolisa Earthquake and Talisa White-tail in the second canoe were falling behind, but that wasn’t a worry. Sofi Tornado, Morningstar, Paloma Pronghorn and Sitsi Kestrel would slaughter the Mushroom Men quite happily on their own.

  Yoki Choppa had found two power animals in the Water Divided tribe’s market—caribou and mantis shrimp—so their stamina would be boosted back to normal levels, and Morningstar’s ability to punch people into a bloody pulp would be restored. It was more than Sofi had expected but not as much as she’d hoped.

  On the bright side, they were catching the Mushroom Men. They’d be on the back boat easily before it had crossed the river and the others would not get far.

  She heaved and heaved on the rope. Was her stamina returning already after the tiny morsel of caribou that Yoki Choppa had fed them all? She thought so. Her muscles were certainly singing with the joy of the work.

  Heave, heave, they gained with every heave. So much water was coming over the prow that she had Yoki Choppa on permanent bailing duty, using the scooped paddle that served both as a bailer and emergency propulsion if they should lose the rope.

  The nearest Mushroom Man boat reached the second island and she saw them turn to look at her. That’s right, she grinned, we’re coming.

  Heave, heave, heave! Finnbogi’s arms were burning hideously, striving to match the relentless rhythm set by Keef and Bodil in front of him. His back was screaming in protest with the twist and strain. His hands were stinging; blistered and bleeding from pulling on the wet rope.

  They’d sped up a lot. Because the rope bowed with the current, the Owsla had been obscured by the island last time he looked back, and now he didn’t want to look because all he could do was heave, heave, heave! What they’d do the other side, he had no idea, but they had to get there.

  Gunnhild was panting like a dying buffalo behind him. Behind her, Ottar was bailing water from the canoe and singing a high-pitched, strange but surprisingly tuneful song. Gunnhild and Ottar! Why for the love of Loakie was he in a canoe with those two dead weights? Although, to give them their due, they were both working hard, and they were catching up to Wulf, Sassa, Bjarni, Erik and Freydis in the forward canoe.

  “Owsla coming in canoes!” shouted Keef when they were within earshot of the others.

  The forward boat put on a sprint, and soon Finnbogi’s canoe wasn’t catching up any more.

  “Innowak’s burning beak!” Sofi Tornado cursed as they rounded the second island. The Mushroom Men had piled on the pace and were only a little closer than the last time she’d seen them. It was less certain that they’d catch up before they’d crossed the river. Still, the Owsla would land moments afterwards and have them.

  Unless …

  If the Mushroom Men did reach the other side first, there was something screamingly obvious that they could do to once again delay their inevitable capture.

  But there was also something she could do to prevent that from happening.

  “Sitsi, stop pulling and be ready with your bow!” she yelled over her shoulder.

  “I am always ready with my bow,” Sitsi replied, letting go of the rope and preparing her bow in direct contravention of her claim.

  Sassa bent over, hand on her knees and sucked in heaving, panting breaths. The world span around her and she was certain she was going to die right there on the river bank. Finally her breathing calmed enough and she was able to stand straight and take in her surroundings. Foul an owl, the pulling had been an absolute duck fucker.

  The boat containing Keef, Bodil, Finnbogi, Gunnhild, Ot
tar and Thyri was fifty paces from shore. The first Owsla boat was maybe a hundred paces behind that, and gaining.

  “We are not going to cut the rope,” Erik was saying to Wulf, fists on hips.

  “Of course we’re going to cut the rope, the moment the others reach the bank,” Wulf replied. “They’ll restring it easily enough.”

  “That will take an age, and bugger everyone about. No, we must respect the ways of the river crossing. Besides, you die when you die. It will make no difference to our fate whether we cut the rope or not.”

  Sassa thought this was pushing the “you die when you die” thing a bit. Sure, the Norns set the day of your death, but it didn’t mean you could run off a cliff or drive a spike into your eye and expect to not die because it wasn’t your day. Except, if you did, surely the Norns had known that you were going to be such a tit so in fact that was the day of your death …

  “What do you think, Sassa?” asked Wulf. “Should we cut the rope?”

  The river crossing rope sprang taut from the stump around which it was wound, in the middle of a mess of boat equipment. The chaos of kit was a stark contrast to the orderly pontoon that they’d set off from.

  Several local Scraylings—“Other-Siders” Galenar had called them—were standing at a safe distance and staring at the newcomers as if they were sharks that had walked out of the river shaking tortoise-shell rattles and singing a song about ocelots.

  She picked up the end of a coil of rope that was part of the riverside detritus. It was light and strong.

  “Well?” asked Wulf.

  “I’m sure Sassa agrees with me. We must not cut the rope,” said Erik. “We’ve already killed a large number of the Water Divided tribe. If we ruin their means of getting across the river as well … What kind of people does that make us?”