by R Magnusholm
As if my eyes aren’t, Gnorrk thought.
A messenger ran to Gnorrk and reported. “The Salmoners have fled.”
“Cowards. And their chief?”
“Fleetfoot’s dead.”
Gnorrk shook his head in dismay. “I told him to stay out of the fighting. I needed him.”
A young warrior staggered out of the smoke. He kept trying to reach behind his back for something. He spotted Gnorrk and stretched out a beseeching paw. “Help me, Grandpaw,” he wailed in a wavering voice. He took two steps and sagged to his knees. For a moment, he remained kneeling in front of Gnorrk, then pitched forward. A black-feathered shaft protruded between his shoulder blades. His fingers clutched spasmodically at moss.
Gnorrk turned away. How exactly did the young fool expect him to help? Only the Blessed Bear could help the dying warrior now. Gnorrk glanced at the blazing undergrowth, and a flash of inspiration struck him like a lightning bolt. For a long moment, he stood transfixed by his own genius, the heat and smoke forgotten.
He turned to Moorgs. “Rally your fighters, cousin. We attack again.”
“But we can’t break deir walls!”
“We don’t need to break them.”
“Huh? What doth thou mean?”
Gnorrk uttered a short bark of laughter. “We burn them down.”
“How?”
“Pile up brushwood against their wall and light it up. Go gather your troops.”
As Moorgs turned to go, a huge fir tree burst into flames fifty yards upwind from them. In two heartbeats, the fire leaped to the neighboring tree. Embers and smoldering branches rained down onto the massed warriors. The orderly retreat became a headlong flight amid panicked screams. Instead of rallying his troops, Moorgs turned and fled.
A wall of heat, such as Gnorrk had never experienced in his life, washed over him.
“Let’s go, Grandpaw,” somebody yelled.
A burning branch crashed to the ground beside Gnorrk, showering him with sparks. The next moment, without making a conscious decision, he was fleeing pell-mell through the burning woods, as tree after tree exploded behind him.
Chapter 87
By Axe and Flames
John and Liz watched a stand of fir trees at the north end of their clearing burst into flames. Even sixty yards away, the sudden conflagration made John flinch. Ursine figures darted amid the smoke, sparks, and crashing branches, squealing.
“Suits them fine,” Liz said.
John nodded. After sloshing water over themselves from the trough, they were dripping wet.
“Let’s go,” he said, lowering the ladder. He threw the leather tub down, and it landed atop the bodies of slain ursines.
“You’re not taking it with you, are you?”
“Oh yes, I am.”
“You’re crazy.”
He grinned, swung a leg over the parapet, and descended the ladder. With an axe in his hand, a bawling baby in a sling at his chest, a bow and quiver slung over his shoulder, he clambered over the bodies and grabbed the tub. At one side of their stockade, brambles and dry grass were aflame. Acrid smoke stung his eyes.
Liz climbed after him, and they started wrenching arrows out of the bodies. Several of the stricken ursines were still alive, choking on their own blood and groaning feebly. The trees blazed on three sides of the clearing, and smoke filled the still safe south side.
“Hurry up, Liz,” he yelled, heading down the path torn out by the rampaging aurochs and then trampled by scores of ursines.
A bundle of bloodied arrows in her hand, Liz caught up with him. She stuffed them in her quiver. “Drop the tub.”
“We came to get it, and we got it.”
She nocked an arrow to her bow and squinted into the smoky woods ahead. An ursine scooted across their path, ignoring them. Liz pulled the bowstring back but didn’t shoot. The roar of flames behind and to the right of them was deafening.
As they reached the tree line, John looked over his shoulder in time to see flames erupting from their fort. His throat constricted. No way back now. Ever. He exchanged a glance with Liz, and they headed into the smoke-filled forest.
Here and there, enemies ran blindly in their terror-stricken confusion, oblivious of John and Liz, despite their crying baby. He supposed the ursines, with their more acute sense of smell, were far less tolerant of smoke.
Up ahead of them rose aspens, and they cut left through the grove toward the stream where they’d hid the Ra. But the flames were chasing after them, leaping from treetop to treetop, threatening to roast them alive. Lugging the unwieldy tub, the smoke burning his lungs, John put up a burst of speed with Liz close behind him.
The two of them struggled through a tangled thicket and slid down the clay bank into the shallow water. It was cooler and less smoky here, and the two ursines standing in the stream were very much aware of John and Liz. The monsters took one look and charged.
Liz killed the first with an arrow to the head. The second ursine rushed at them with its club raised, snarling.
John sidestepped the descending club and smashed his axe into the enemy’s shoulder. Its frightful fangs bared, the ursine dropped the club and dashed at Liz, who was readying a new shot. She took a step back, slipped on a wet stone of the streambed, and fell backward.
Before the monster could leap on Liz and use its teeth on her, John buried his axe in the back of its head. The brute fell snout first into the water, nearly wrenching the weapon out of John’s hand.
Shakily, Liz clambered to her feet and picked up her bow and arrow before they could float away. Once more, they headed downstream. Liz ducked under a fallen trunk, mossy and festooned with ivy, which spanned the stream to form a natural bridge. John followed, splashing as he ran. Beyond the log, the water came up to his ankles, slowing him down. And there, behind the next bend, stood the weeping willow with the boat’s mast poking from its crown. They darted inside its sheltering branches. He threw the leather tub on the deck and unfastened the mooring rope.
With George crying insistently in his sling, John dragged the Ra by its mooring line, while Liz walked behind them, sweeping the woods with her bow.
Ursine calls sounded ashore, followed by the crashing of many feet, but the tangled bushes lining the steep banks were so dense that the enemy remained invisible. Gnarled branches and roots tore at John’s clothes, and overhanging boughs threatened to snag the mast top. Fortunately, the impenetrable thickets prevented the ursines from descending to the streambed and attacking.
Sweat flowing down his face, John grimly dragged the boat behind him, slipping on stones, falling, and dunking George in the water. The current helped him along, but now the ursine calls sounded on both banks, ahead and behind them. Gradually the stream widened, and the water grew deeper. When it reached above his waist, he told Liz to get aboard and climbed in himself, grabbing a paddle.
They swept past another curve, and there—no more than fifty yards ahead—the trees opened on both sides to reveal the mouth of the Fleet and the Thames beyond.
“We’ve made it!” Liz cried jubilantly. Her smile died abruptly, and she lifted her bow.
A dozen ursines sprinted, splashing through the shallows, to cut them off. More enemies emerged behind them, running along the streambed, roaring in triumph.
Liz loosed an arrow, and the leading enemy stumbled and fell. The body floated face down in the water. She took another shot. The second bear clutched at his shoulder and staggered backward. The others hesitated for a moment, then charged.
John paddled furiously, hoping to gain the big river before the ursines blocked their escape. But the current carried them closer to the enemy.
Liz shot another monster. But there were too many of them, reaching to grab the raft, lifting their clubs, and snarling.
John threw the paddle on deck and pulled out his bloodied axe from under his belt.
The ursines surged closer, mere steps away now. Suddenly, one of them and then another lost their footing and fl
oundered in deep water. Thwarted, they scrambled back to the shallows.
“How do you like it now, assholes,” John yelled, trying to slash the nearest brute with his axe. The blade bit into the water.
The current swept the Ra past the enemy, and they were in the clear.
John and Liz exchanged a glance, then embraced. Safe at last. By God, we’ve made it!
Tears of joy streamed down Liz’s soot-streaked face. The ursines were running up and down the shore, jabbering, impotently stomping their feet, waving their clubs, but it was no use. They’d lost, and they knew it.
Liz wiped her face on her sleeve, and was about to lay her bow aside, when her mouth tightened, and a vindictive gleam came into her eyes. She nocked an arrow to her bow and took aim. Her fingers rolled off the bowstring, and the arrow arced toward the shore. An ursine who stood waist-deep in the water clutched at his chest and staggered back to shore.
She lowered her weapon. “A parting present.”
“I love you, Liz.”
She smoothed her hand over the leather tub. “You’re a madman, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know, but I was hoping you’d say you love me too.”
“I love you too.” She reached for poor George, who kept on crying disconsolately against John’s chest. “Now, give me this hungry baby. Mommy’s got some milk.”
John untied the sling and handed the baby to Liz. Then, he put an oar into the rudder slot and hoisted the sail. The northerly wind carried them far out into the river, leaving the ursine shore far behind. Once they cleared the reed beds, he steered the Ra west.
The wind continued to drive the raft sideways to the south, so John lowered the retractable keels. The southward drift was reduced to nothing.
As the blaze spread all the way to the riverbank, apocalyptic clouds of black and gray smoke spiraled above the woods. Livid gouts of flames shot a hundred feet into the air, twisting and writhing like ethereal snakes, and even at this distance, the rumble of fire and the crash of falling trees reached his ears.
And then the flames leaped to the reed beds, sending hundreds upon hundreds of water birds fleeing. The panicked beating of their wings, quacking and honking made him think of a horror movie he’d seen years ago. The low-flying waterfowl streamed on all sides of the boat, mere feet away, and it took all of his composure to hold the course steady.
Then, as suddenly as the cacophonous flock had appeared, it vanished into the distance, and the Ra sailed in silence.
When John released his grip on the tiller, he discovered that his hand shook like that of an inveterate alcoholic. He took a deep breath of the fresh river breeze and broke into a fit of hysterical laughter.
Chapter 88
And the River Took Them
Gnorrk waded through the shallows, coughing and choking on smoke. His pelt was singed, and his eyes burned. The puny whelps somehow made a piece of land float and now they sat atop it like frogs on a lily pad, as the wind carried them farther and farther away from Gnorrk’s righteous wrath.
As he glowered at the escaping enemies, their giant lily pad moved behind a curve in the channel and vanished from view.
What evil magic made land float like that? What dark sorcery? He didn’t know. He couldn’t tell.
He turned to his retinue, pleased to see that most of them had made it out of the burning woods. At a glance, he still had half of his army. The fact that he’d lost the other half didn’t bother him; there’d be fewer mouths to feed over the coming winter. By spring, at least thirty juveniles would reach adulthood to make up for the losses. And that was just in the Woodlander village alone.
Smoke and heat rolled over him in waves, but ducking his head under water now and again kept him cool. His warband had crossed a shallow channel between the reed beds; the flames would never reach them here. All they had to do was wait for the fire to burn out. Already the flames were subsiding in the rushes nearest the bank.
Gnorrk spotted the shaman being supported by two young warriors and headed toward them. He passed a gaggle of troops, some of them wounded and leaning on their comrades. Strongpaw was among them. His normally glossy black nose was ashy gray, and he swayed on his feet.
Gnorrk clapped him on the shoulder. He raised his voice, so everyone could hear. “Cheer up, son. We’ve won a great victory today. We chased the monsters away from our land.”
Strongpaw smiled weakly with bloodless lips but said nothing. A patch of fur on his arm had been burned off.
Gnorrk stooped in front of the shaman. “Uncle, can you ask the spirits where the dwarfs went?”
“Into the river.”
Gnorrk ground his teeth and rapped the shaman on the head, half-expecting to hear a hollow sound, like from a rotten log. “Into the river,” he repeated in a mocking tone. “I already know that. Tell me where they’re going.”
“Maybe they live there . . . like beavers.”
Gnorrk bit off an angry reply and stalked over to a group of Sunsetters clustering around their chief. Now, the Sunsetters lived on the river, so perhaps they had some idea.
And indeed, they had.
“I’ll send scouts upriver,” said the Sunsetter chief after listening to Gnorrk. “We know that stretch very well. Unless they crossed the Great Salty River to the Land of the Dead, we’ll find them.”
“The Land of the Dead is beyond the river?” Gnorrk asked.
“Of course.”
“If you say so,” Gnorrk said and headed to find Moorgs of the Sunrisers.
“I’ll send da scouts downriver,” Moorgs promised.
“Do you think the dwarfs have crossed the river?”
“Impossible!” Moorgs cried. “Dere’s no other side. It’s just water all da way to da end of da world. If dey go dat way, dey just fall off da edge.”
Gnorrk smirked. “That would be nice.”
“Thou told me thy shaman says if we don’t kill da dwarfs, we’re doomed.”
“He used to. But now he’s gone soft in the head. He thinks the dwarfs live in the river, like beavers.”
“Maybe thou should eat him while he’s good and fat,” Moorgs said. “But back to business.” He turned and gave orders. A dozen scouts headed downriver.
***
John and Liz unloaded the Ra and dragged it up the flood meadow of Oat Island. A mile east, the woods and reed beds blazed, but the wind carried the smoke south and past them. They reclined in the lush grass and watched the conflagration. At this distance, the roar of flames, crash of exploding trunks, and groans of falling trees merged into a dull rumble that no longer sounded quite as apocalyptic.
“Can they find us here?” Liz asked wearily, plucking at her sleeve where a seam came loose.
“Unlikely. They’re woodland creatures. Why should they go blundering in reeds? They’d be vulnerable to tiger attacks.”
“I don’t feel safe here.”
He peered at the beds of rushes, only fifty yards away. “Neither do I.”
“The tide will ebb in six hours, so we can ride it downriver,” Liz said. She paused, then added. “Except it’d be midnight. And we’re not sailing in the dark.”
“We’ll have Jupiter and the Moon to light the way. Romantic.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not good enough; too dangerous.”
He pinched her side. “I’m only kidding.” After their tight escape from the mainland, he felt like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. On their short journey upriver, he’d been grinning so much that his cheeks hurt.
“The next chance to ride the outflowing tide will be around midday.”
“So?”
She shot him an annoyed glance. “We’d be sitting here in the small hours with the cove empty of water.”
“Oh.”
“I wonder how well the ursines can swim . . .”
“Not very well.” He laughed, in his mind’s eye seeing the monsters flounder in a deep spot. “Although, to be fair, I was trying to reach them with my axe, and you w
ere shooting arrows.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But, maybe under different circumstances, they can swim just fine.”
“I hope not.”
For a while, they sat in silence, watching the clouds of smoke sullying the cobalt blue evening sky. Behind them, the sun hung low over the horizon. With the tide drowning the opposite bank of the channel, there was no chance of anybody lurking in the submerged reeds. John supposed they had nothing to fear during the midnight low tide, either, as the ursines weren’t likely to blunder through a quagmire in the dark.
He hauled himself to his feet. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest. “Let’s make camp.”
They headed deeper inland, into the miniature forest. This time, they were careful to choose a shielded spot for the campfire that wouldn’t be seen from the mainland. The drawback of their position was that they couldn’t observe the opposite bank of the channel.
The embers in the firepot were nearly dead, and it took quite an effort to light the fire. But soon, water boiled in the cooking skin, and mushrooms roasted on spits.
John spread a couple of bearskins on the ground, bent and tied six saplings together to form a vaulted frame, and roofed it with more skins to shelter them from the cold and damp. After topping up the phone battery with a crank charger, Liz set the alarm for 3 a.m. for one of them to watch the opposite bank at low tide.
As the western sky turned the color of burnished gold, they ate the smoky mushrooms in silence. In the east, lurid flickers of the forest fire lit the dark horizon. The palls of smoke periodically hid the crescent moon from sight. The wind dropped and then died.
“Awesome view,” John said.
Liz smiled tiredly, her eyes reflecting the orange sky. “Hmm.”
“Like sunset and sunrise—all at once. Romantic.”
“Well, I suppose it is.”
“Ah, Liz.” He reclined on the bearskin with a contented sigh. “Do you feel that too?”
“What?”
He grinned. “Freedom.”
A loon called from somewhere out on the river, the eerie sound vibrating in the still night air.