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

shelter he had seen, he flailed and floundered through knee-deep muck. Stumbling along, the laughter he heard coming from the building annoyed him. “Yar! You’d think they’d take pity on such a miserable beast as myself—laughin’ and carryin’ on in the dry and warm. Ah well, they don’t know a raving mud-beast is heading for their door!”

Pulling himself onto the solid stone pathway, Emil ran quickly to the door of what was plainly a roadside inn: The Three Jolly Climbers.

Reaching the door of the inn, Emil halted. Over the door was painted:

On the Way to Maev Astuté

a Last Good Meal, Good Beasts, and Tea,

With Kind Merriment by Horse Doobutt.

“Warn me mother!” Emil thought. “I’ve blundered onto the Climber’s Way.” No Wood Cow ever ventured near the Climber’s Way. Everyone knew that. The Climber’s Way was the road leading to the place where the ascent to Maev Astuté began. Most Hedgies completed the climb to Maev Astuté as an act of honor and duty to their homeland. But not the Wood Cows. They found everything about Maev Astuté disgusting and had long ago refused the climb on principle. No Wood Cow would choose to walk the Climber’s Way.

Nevertheless, here he was stumbling along half-drowned, ready to take any possible refuge. Streaming with muddy water and trembling with cold, Emil opened the door and went inside. The stormy night seemed to push him through the door with a particularly fierce gust of wind and rain.

Once inside, he became instantly alert. He didn’t like what he saw. The entrance door opened into a large public room filled with beasts of every description. Although cheery candles burned here and there on wall sconces, and a warm fire blazed in the hearth, there was a distinct coolness in the air. The remains of a large meal rested on platters piled high on a counter. Around the room beasts lounged back in chairs—they had been talking, playing cards, and generally enjoying themselves. That is, until Emil entered the room. In an instant the jovial talk stopped, all eyes now fixed on him. Conversation froze in mid-sentence, there was absolute silence, no beast even twitched.

The stares trained in his direction were not inviting. Three or four Digger Hogs sat drinking Mud Slops and peeling boiled turtle eggs—tossing the shells on the floor as they ate. They were tattooed, filthy, steel-skinned beasts, with rippling muscles and angry eyes; wearing the iron and canvas overalls of the digging trade. One of the Digger Hogs half-rose from his chair; a clear warning to Emil to come no closer. Emil stopped. Even a strongly built Wood Cow—who was afraid of nothing—would not fight just to be fighting.

“It’s a Zanuck, don’t you know!” the innkeeper called out as Emil entered through the door.  A tall Horse, wearing a clean linen cap, the innkeeper was strongly muscular, with arms bulging beneath the tight-fitting sleeves of his shirt as he balanced a heavy serving tray loaded with mugs and plates. A pencil-thin mustache and small pointed beard under the chin added to his look of unfriendly welcome.

“Come in, traveler,” the innkeeper continued. “There’s still room for another guest,” he smirked, looking knowingly about the room. “Here’s a guest for us, friends! A Zanuck who, like all of them, does not know enough to come in out the rain—Har! Har! Har!” A chorus of mocking welcomes greeted Emil. “He-Ho, Zanuck, I knew you had mud for brains, but I didn’t know you wore it too! Har! Har”

“I’ll shake the water from my clothes and continue on, if you can’t be civil beasts,” Emil replied, shaking the water roughly off his coat in all directions. Seeing the innkeeper’s angry look as the water flew everywhere, and that a burly Woodchuck was fingering a knife stuck in his belt, Emil continued with a warning: “and don’t trouble me if you’re smart; I carry a fully-loaded temper which could go off easily—it’s done so before now—and that could make it dangerous for a foolish beast who thinks I’m only a young Wood Cow. I warn you not to lay hands on me.”

“Do you threaten me in my own inn?” the Horse shouted angrily.

“I don’t believe in threats!” Emil retorted. “If I state my intention, it’s a promise—and my intention is merely to ask for a civil innkeeper and a bed for the night. I mean you no harm and will fight only for my own safety. Beyond that, I impose on you only to the extent of paying for a bed. Now, if you please, do you have a room?”

“Why, sure, I’ve got a room,” the innkeeper smiled slyly. “What with the storm, we’re pretty full tonight, but for a fine young Zanuck, why we have plenty of room. Har! Har! Har!”

The innkeeper walked over to a door with a pompous strut that made all the beasts in the room—except Emil—laugh heartily. Bowing low, he swung open the door, inviting Emil to go through. “Just drop your two best pieces of silver on the table as you pass, my friend—you can keep the coppers!”

“And now, my dear mud-brain,” the innkeeper proclaimed in mock respect, “let me conduct you to the luxurious room reserved especially for Zanucks.”

Feeling certain that he would be given the most miserable space in the house, Emil nevertheless followed, too wet and cold to care where he slept. Carrying a sputtering candle, the innkeeper conducted him along a long, dark passageway. Opening a second door, the roaring storm blew in rain once again. Sniggering, the innkeeper pointed to a dilapidated barn, barely discernable through the driving rain.

“There you go Zanuck,” a nice room for you. “And you’ll find some company there—a Poolytuck’s already settled down there for the night. Now get yourself out of my inn, the rain is soakin’ my boots and floodin’ the hallway! The barn will be a fine place for a mud-brained idiot like yourself!”

Saying nothing, Emil waded hurriedly across the flooded, muddy ground to the barn. Pushing the door open, he peered into the gloomy, musty-smelling building. A constant stream of drips pattered here and there from the badly leaking roof, leaving much of the floor covered in puddles.

“Ya-Chooo! Wheeez-Zooo!” The feeble sneeze revealed the location of a Moose reclining on a rough bed of burlap bags laid across some planks resting on a couple of barrels. The crude bed was set up in a corner of the barn where the roof did not leak.

Splashing across the wet, muddy floor to the small scrap of dry space, his eyes scanned the motionless body curled tightly under a scant covering of bags. In the dim light, he could make out the poor beast’s body shivering with cold, as his breath wheezed out a nearly continuous stream of faint sneezes.

Bone-weary and hungry, the miserable Wood Cow knew the sorry condition of his roommate had to be his first priority. Having nothing that was truly dry, Emil ripped a few dry boards off the wall of the barn. Using a bit of dry straw he found and the flint he always carried, he soon got a decent small fire going in the tiny dry corner of the barn. The old barn had a fine high roof that allowed the smoke to rise and be sucked out through the holes left by missing timbers. The fire burned nicely and gradually the small corner of safety became warmer.

At first, the Moose did not respond to Emil’s presence. Little by little, the warmth of the fire raised Emil’s spirits and seemed to steady his companion’s breathing. Finding dry boards here and there in the barn, Emil tore them down and broke them into splintered pieces for burning. Soon he had enough to assure a decent fire through the night. Then he took off his drenched outer clothing and hung it to dry near the fire.

He had just settled down in his underclothes before the fire, trying to warm some food and drink from his pack, when his long-silent companion spoke: “Well, look at me, sleeping like a piece o’ timber—but nothing wrong that a little warmth and a friendly snip of toast won’t cure! Not much wrong with my appetite, but my nose is still a bit out o’ sorts—Ya-chooo!”

Emil chuckled, feeling relief that the Moose was showing signs of improvement. To his delight, the elderly Moose suddenly sat up, grinning at him with a silly, toothless smile. In the light of the fire, the Moose’s slender form cast a slight shadow on the wall, seeming like a blowing cobweb in the flickering light. He was really just a sliver of a beast, Emil thought; the obvious vigor and strength of earlier years now gone. A ragged beard hung from his grizzled, wrinkled face, which was lit by two brightly gleaming, deeply-set eyes. His head was shaved to a stubble.

“Well,” the Moose began, “I’ll be as silly as I was born to be in a few hours. A pint of cupper and a snip of toast would put spine in my spirit. Any chance of that, my wibble?” Before Emil could reply, a violent fit of wheezing overtook the old Moose and he fell back on his bed. “Acht,” he gasped, wheezing for breath. “I’ll need more than a pint of cupper and toast to make the climb.”

“Make the climb?” Emil asked incredulously. “You can’t be a climber—you climb to Maev Astuté? You’re in no shape to be going on that cursed climb! Just you drop your bag of guts and drool right back on that bed and let me warm up some food and drink for us.”

“A Poolytuck’s not got many choices when it comes to the climb, y’know,” the old Moose wheezed as Emil pulled a tin jug from his pack. “I’ve got to climb, die, or live like a dead beast. There’s few places to die in peace for an old Poolytuck with no family to fall back on—might’s as well freeze up solid on the stairs. At least that way’s no one says I’d be a cowardly beast, set only on comfort.”

“Comfort!” Emil grimaced. “Why you’re barely a breath of air and a threadbare sheet of fur. Yar! There’ll be no climbin’ for you, old spot! I won’t allow it. I’d rather freeze on the stairs myself. You’ll be a dead beast before you take ten steps up there on the mountain. Nar, you won’t be climbin’—I’ll see to that.”

Emil said nothing more for a time, although his thoughts whirled with fury. Twisting the wide cap off his water jug, he emptied the stale water out in a puddle on the floor. Then he walked over and held the jug under one of the streams of rain water coming through the roof. The patter of rain filling the jug soothed his nerves. “Yar,” he thought to himself, “that Moose won’t be climbin’ that cursed mountain—not so long as I’ve got breath.”

When the jug was half-full, Emil carried it back over by the fire. Reaching into his pack he pulled out the soggy remains of a barley loaf. A dripping mass of gummy flour was all that was left of what had once been a fine fresh loaf. Emil chuckled as he tore the soggy mess into bits and put them in the jug of water, then held the jug out over the fire with a pitchfolk he found leaning against the wall.

“There we go, old spot. We’ll just have our hot food and drink as a single batch—call it Innkeeper’s Best and I wager it’ll be no better or worse than the soup he serves to the regular guests!”

The old Moose laughed, and could not help