Helga: Out of Hedgelands, Rick Johnson [suggested reading txt] 📗

trees and rocks had to be moved. They struggled on like this until the sun began to set.

“It’s time to find a campsite for the night,” Helga said as dusk was falling. “Where should we stop?”

“Perhaps that may be a cabin up ahead,” Breister replied, pointing to a wisp of smoke catching final rays of sun above a rise. Peering through the deepening twilight, the outline of a chimney was visible.

“Yes, there’s a sort of farmstead,” Helga agreed, as they walked closer. Several more buildings and other signs of habitation appeared as they continued their approach.

Perched on a plateau of level ground, several stone cabins were scattered amongst an intricate network of pens enclosed by low rock walls. Large numbers of tortoises with huge, high-domed shells crawled around in the corrals.

Amazed and baffled, Breister and Helga proceeded down the path toward the first cabin. A tall, lanky Opossum, cracking a long whip at some of the dome-shelled creatures he was herding from one pen to another, noticed them. He looked over the newcomers suspiciously, his head completely hidden by a white bandana wrapped tightly over his head and knotted at the back.

Closing the gate behind the last tortoise, he stepped toward the travelers with a fearsome look in the eyes that glinted just under the edge of the headwrap. Stepping toward them, he cracked the whip sharply on the rock path—an obvious command that they halt.

“I am Matsu,” he said, “Who are you, strangers?”

Breister introduced himself and Helga. “We are very glad to meet you, Matsu,” he said calmly. “We’d like to draw up a chair at your table tonight, and sleep by the fire if we could.”

“Ayah!” Matsu replied angrily. Slashing his whip once more, he shouted. “Begger weevils! Begger weevils! Why should I let you stay? What’s your business in Shell Kral?”

“Ah! You take us wrong!” Breister cried. “Two weary travelers, with all our worldly goods, only stopping to rest and talk with Bost Ony...”

As Breister uttered these words, the Opossum’s dark eyes flashed with fire. “What do you want with Bost Ony?” he asked. “What do you come to her for? Why are you here?”

“We have lost our way,” Helga explained. “We don’t know which way to go. A friend told us that Bost Ony knew safe routes to the east.”

“A friend sent you here?” Matsu repeated. “Milky Joe—did he send you?”

“No,” Helga answered slowly, tingling with unease at once again encountering the name. “We’re not friends with anyone called Milky Joe. We’re just lost beasts looking for a place to stay the night and then a safe path east in the morning. That’s all we want. We’re very sorry if we’ve disturbed you, Matsu.”

“You can’t stay here any longer, weevils,” replied Matsu, staring at them with a stone-faced scowl. “No one but friends of Milky Joe can be in Shell Kral when he is coming to trade.”

“If we can’t stay, where shall we go?” asked Breister. “We’d not trouble good beasts such as yourself if we knew where else to go.”

“Ayah!” the Opossum snarled, pointing toward the east, “them’s as want to go to the east, should go that direction. You’ve nothing to lose that you will not lose anyway if you stay here. I do you this one mercy. Now, be off with you!” he snapped the whip in their direction again. Ha! Ha! Ha-Ho!”

“If you please, Matsu,” Breister began, “if we can’t see Bost Ony, can you tell us a safe path to follow?”

“So, you’d like to be able to go easy as you please, is that it, weevils?” he replied. “All the routes to the east are safe—if you survive! Ha! Ha! Ha-Ho! Any safety you might find in Bost Ony’s advice is lost if you stay here one more instant!” the Opossum cried, slashing viciously with his whip. “Leave! Be gone, weevils! Be thankful I show you this mercy before Milky Joe and his Wrackshees arrive. I could trade you for many tortoises!”

“Trade us for tortoises!” cried Helga.

“Both of you weevils together,” replied Matsu, “might bring 3-4 nice high-grade trallés.”

“Trallés?” asked Breister.

“Trallés are the currency of slaving around here,” the Opossum replied in an evil tone, flicking his whip lightly for emphasis. “Racing tortoises. There’s lots of fancy beasts all over that love their classy clothes, princely titles...and, racing trallés...Some fancy beasts favor the laces of Matuch and Framm, or the brocades of Sonivad and velvets of Potwigg, or Rotter crystal and wine, but almost anywhere, the fancies covet racing trallés.” Matsu’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Mercy’s not much more than a word around here—and it don’t last long,” he hissed. “Unless you’ve a will to be sold for a few trallés, take that bit o’ timber you’re dragging behind you and beat it!” Ferociously cracking his whip in all directions, he advanced slowly toward the unfortunate travelers. “Be off wi’ya, weevils!”

Saying nothing more, the Wood Cows turned away from Shell Kral and set their course for the brow of a distant hill.

 

The Only Possibility

Helga and Breister didn’t travel far before they stumbled upon a stream that appeared suitable for their boat. Twilight was giving way to deepening dark, and they made camp and cooked supper. Helga made a hearty soup from slugs, rockbeets and snowberries, while Breister baked pine nut bread. They ate happily and then each bedded down under a cloak for the night.

The next morning they launched their boat and set out. The river was swift and there were frequent rapids. But their boat was sturdy and they were fearless.

The rapids proved to be far more dangerous than they could easily handle, however. Their vessel plunged wildly and sometimes spun crazily out of control. They used their long oars as poles to push away from on-rushing boulders, or to regain control of their craft as it flew through the spray. Water sloshed around their ankles, and the beleaguered Wood Cows bailed frantically to keep the boat from sinking. For nearly an hour they found no rest or relief.

Happily, as the water in the boat rose to dangerous levels, the Wood Cows found a rock jutting out into the river that provided a secure place to tie their boat and a narrow ledge to stand upon. Joyfully, for the first time in their pell-mell, cascading trip down the river, they were able to get out of their boat and stand on solid ground.

Slumping to the ground, resting and thoughtful, they were quiet for a time. Then, Helga, who had leaned her head back against the rock wall, spoke. “The rock carries an unusual amount of vibration,” she said. “It’s as if there is a far-off rumbling...perhaps there is a gigantic falls around the bend.”

“But there’s no mist rising to the sky, Helga,” Breister mused. “If there were a great falls, there would be clouds of mist rising into the sky. It must be something else...but what?”

“We can’t go forward without knowing what lies ahead,” Helga observed. “We’ll have to explore, before we go further on this river.”

Her father agreed, but they realized that was a difficult task. Rising perhaps 3,000 feet on both sides of the stream, sheer cliffs seemed to block any advance. Retreat was also impossible. The force and speed of the river made it impossible that they could force their boat back upstream.  The only possibility was to go forward. But how?

 “I think I can climb the cliff to the top,” Helga said softly, as if to herself. “There are breaks and ledges enough that I could climb up, then follow the river to see what’s ahead. What do you think?”

“I think you have to try it,” Breister began. “You used to climb all over everything when you were young.  You can scout the river downstream and perhaps find a safe route for the boat. When you return, we’ll make a plan.”

Helga gave her father a long look, as they both considered what lay ahead. Then she prepared to leave.

“Catch some fish for us,” Helga said. “We’ll have a good fish fry when I get back...” Her voice trailed off as they both realized how long that might be, if ever. Helga threw her arms around her father in a lingering final embrace. Then she gathered a bit of food and water in a pack and began to climb.

Breister stood for a long while watching Helga skillfully pick her way up the lower portion of the cliff. He admired her courage. Taking one last look after his daughter, Breister settled down and dropped his fishing line in the river...

 

“My life, I am a Borf!”

When Bad Bone had slipped on Breister’s reed boots and padded away from Helga’s cottage, at first things went well. In the early going, the deep darkness shielded him. A faint glow at the horizon, however, promised a full moon would soon rise into the cloudless night sky, pressing the urgency of escape upon him. “What a miserable night to attempt escape,” he thought, nerves tingling with alert. Even keeping to the deepest shadows, he sometimes would be forced to step across moonlit gaps in the cover. “There is nothing to do but try,” he scolded himself softly. “I can beat this. I’ll not allow a gang of bungling cutthroats to catch me.” 

Crawling on his belly along ditches for concealment, Bad Bone crept cautiously toward the forbidding mountains that rose just beyond the Bor Jeeves River. Flowing past the hamlet at O’Fallon’s Bluff, the river represented safety. “If I can just get across the river,” he thought, “they’ll never be able to track me in the mountains.” He hoped to cling to the side of the ferryboat at Thedford’s Crossing and, breathing through a reed, catch a ride across the river undetected. Once across the Bor Jeeves, escape into the wildest ranges of the Don’ot Stumb Mountains beckoned. The fugitive Lynx knew that time was short. Soon, fruitless search of the hamlet would turn the Royal Patrol to possible avenues of his escape. Each moment, the full moon rose more brightly into the sky.

Realizing that spies might be watching the normal river crossing, Bad Bone crept softly toward the crossing point. The Bor Jeeves River cascaded down from the mountains in a furious series of cataracts. These made the river impossible to cross upstream from the ferry dock operated by Stoke Thedford. Every hour, Stoke’s boats made a circuit across the Bor Jeeves. It was the only safe crossing in miles.

Bad Bone listened as the hourly bell rang, calling passengers to board the ferry. Except for the bell, however, he was puzzled by the unexpected silence at the crossing. Normally, he knew, the ferry dock would be packed at this time of the evening, as creatures hurried home or went to visit friends. “There should be lots of folk boarding the ferry,” Bad Bone thought. “Where is everyone?” Something was wrong at the ferry crossing. Straining his ears to pick up any sound that might give him information, he tingled with anxious suspense. The absence of any of the normal sounds of passenger traffic was so stark as to be sinister in its implications.

“There must be spies or soldiers watching the ferry,” he concluded. “The other beasts know there’s trouble and are staying away. It’s a trap. I’ll have to take my chances further downstream.” With this thought in mind, Bad Bone wormed his way, inch by inch, away through the brush where he had been hiding. “Haven’t been downstream from Thedford’s in years,” he reflected as he crawled along. “The river’s deep and swift through there...but no rapids as I recall. Perhaps I can swim it at some point...but that’ll have to wait for daylight,” he