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

below, the two beasts skittered down the line into the boat and cast off. Urgently rowing with all the strength they had, the two sea-beasts managed to pull away to such a distance from their ship that, in the semi-darkness, they would not draw attention to themselves. The two beasts listened and watched as the attacking Wrackshees encircled, then boarded, Daring Dream, observing their prediction come true: the ship and all the crew taken without any apparent violence.

“Slavers for sure,” Bomper said. “They noticed some easy pickin’s and took a wounded bird.”

“Vast! Crinoo! That be for sure,” Roolo agreed grimly.

“The Capt’n and Fishbum are two smart beasts,” Bomper observed. “They will make it to help, if any beasts can.”

“Aye-Yah!” Roolo replied. “They will deal with the slavers—but we have no way to know where they are or how to help them. We need our own plan. What should we do?”

“The Dream is wrecked,” Bomper said. “The slavers will pick her clean and leave her bones to rot where they are—unless they torch her, which they may not want to do. BorMane says there’s not much of law and order in these parts—Wrackshees, Rummer Boars, and other unwashed baddies everywhere. I’d be doubtin’ that the ones as took our ship want to draw flamin’ attention from their competitors!”

Pausing for a moment, Bomper chuckled, then continued, “I say we go for help of a different kind than the Capt’n’s probably after—and what else will he need beyond hands to help him rescue his crew, why a ship to sail! I say we get help to repair the Daring Dream—a few days will get her seaworthy again. We could work at night so’s to not attract attention—keep the work low and out of sight during the day—then raise the masts and sails in a single night, so’s to show our hand only when we’re ready!”

“Yah!” Roolo agreed. “You direct repairs while I raise a new crew—then we go after our mates with the Dream and carry them off!”

Having agreed to their daring plan, the two sea-beasts wrapped pieces of cloth around the oarlocks to deaden the sound and rowed off into the night. Things began going badly immediately. One of the oarlocks broke off completely, forcing the sea-beasts to paddle the stout boat. The heavy, eight-foot long oars, designed to give maximum power with the leverage provided by oarlocks, were nearly useless as paddles. After struggling for nearly an hour to break the iron-hard wood of the oars, they managed to shorten each oar. The handle of one of the oars completely shattered, however, leaving only the flattened end of the oar and one foot of handle. In such circumstances, paddling was an exhausting enterprise—especially as the wind increased and kicked up larger and larger waves.

The stout-hearted sea-beasts battled the waves and current for several hours before finally succumbing to a bone-tiredness that steadily robbed them of their strength. Giving up the struggle for the time being, Roolo and Bomper slumped in the keelboat and feel asleep. Drifting on the current, the keelboat carried the sea-beasts far down the coast. After several hours of peacefully drifting on the current, the violent pitching and rolling of their boat awakened the sea-beasts. Large waves, driving their boat toward the shore, had turned their craft parallel to the waves, making it roll dangerously.

The sorry state of their oars left Roolo and Bomper ill-prepared to deal with the emergency. “Broadside to the waves, we don’t stand a chance!” Roolo cried. With no way to change that situation, the sea soon proved him correct. Their wildly pitching boat capsized, tossing Roolo and Bomper into the water.

Dodging the keelboat tossing on the waves, the sea-beasts struggled to shore as best they could. Slogging up on a wide sandy beach, the sea-beasts dropped to the sand, panting. Surveying their situation, they noticed they had landed on an extremely wide beach extending most of the way around a small cove.

As they caught their breath, their keelboat was also being tossed toward the beach, and soon they had landed it securely on the sand.

“What now?” Bomper sighed, feeling clueless about what to do.

“Don’t know,” Roolo replied, “don’t rightly know where we are, which makes it hard to know where to go.”

“We were pushed to shore from that direction,” Bomper said, tracing the path that had landed them on the beach. “My guess is that we rode the current down the coast from the same direction.”

“Makes sense to me,” Roolo agreed, “but that still doesn’t tell us what to do now.”

“Well,” Bomper said, grinning sheepishly, “I think we’ve shown that we’re not very good sailors with our current vessel! I’d recommend we try our luck walking for a while.”

Roolo agreed that the prospects of success with their keelboat were not promising. “I say we stick with our original plan to seek help with repairing Dream,” he suggested. “If we find beasts as can help us with that, we may also get help with finding our mates.”

“Let’s pull our boat up on the beach beyond the high-tide line,” Bomper added. “That way, it will be here if we decide we need to come back this way—we don’t know what lies ahead, and we may think that ’ol slug of a boat looks pretty good sometime.” Working hard, they succeeded in pulling the heavy keelboat far across the sand to a point where it was safe from being washed back to sea by the tide. Then, deciding that the best likelihood of finding help was to go inland, they traveled away from the beach along what appeared to be the easiest route upward through the steep, rocky hills rising away from the beach.

Walking all day, Roolo and Bomper noted that the air, which had seemed mild and fresh on the beach, became colder and damper as they ascended higher into the hills. As sunset approached, the sky took on a deep red-orange color as the sun settled behind an increasing veil of clouds. Roolo and Bomper, sea-beasts to the heart, knew practically nothing about traveling on land and even less about sustaining themselves without a ship’s cook. Miserably hungry and thirsty, having taken their last food and water aboard Daring Dream, they halted under the protection of a large solitary pine tree. The protection afforded by the tree against hunger and thirst, however, was limited to the numerous nobby pinecones scattered beneath the tree.

The ravenous sea-beasts were just beginning to consider pounding the pinecones with rocks to try to soften them up a bit, when the faint, but unmistakable, scent of cooking fish wafted past them. Exchanging glances of astonished happiness, Roolo and Bomper ran off in the direction from which the smell seemed to be coming. Coming around a huge boulder, they found a young Cow crouched before a cookfire. The young beast had made camp in a small pocket of sheltered ground. Protected on one side by the boulder and overhung by a rock ledge, the snug little campsite looked very inviting to the troubled sea-beasts. Tired, dirty, and so thirsty they could barely speak, yet somehow this did not dampen their greeting as they approached the Cow rocking on her haunches before the fire.

Almost shouting with joy, Bomper called out a greeting, “Holo! Hey! Look here!”

“Ah, there! So there are beasts in this waste,” the Cow responded, returning the greeting. “Name’s Helga and I’d thought there wasn’t a beast within miles—haven’t seen anyone in two days.” Motioning for her visitors to sit down, she continued, “Sit down. Take a rest. I got some fish I’m happy to share and there’s a spring of fresh water over there.”

“Ancient Ones, be thanked!” Roolo said. “Things are looking better!”

“The water in the spring runs pretty cold,” Helga said. “I’ve got some more fish over there. Go over to the little pool where the spring runs and you’ll see a leather bag held under the water by a rock. The fish are wrapped in corn husks inside—keeps them fresh. Bring them over here and we’ll throw some more fish on the fire. I’ve got plenty.”

It was not far from tears of joy that seemed to cloud the eyes of the sea-beasts as they followed Helga’s instructions. Having nearly given themselves up to enduring a long night of hunger and thirst, watching Helga preparing the fish made them doubly thankful for her open-handed generosity. Hanging the fish over a makeshift spit made from tree branches, Helga cooked enough fish to satisfy everyone’s hunger.

“I’m glad I finally found you,” Helga remarked as she handed around the fried fish and dried cherries that made up her simple meal. “I’ve been calling on the Ancient Ones to help me find you.”

“You knew we were coming?” Roolo said with surprise, greedily attacking the fish with his fingers.

“No, I didn’t know you were coming,” Helga laughed, “but I am looking for some sea-beasts in trouble—and I seem to have found some!”

Exchanging stories as they chewed and drank their coffee, the three beasts laughed and joked as the night deepened. Finally, the conversation dropped off into broken, fitful comments as the beasts settled into their own tired reflections. All probably would have dropped off to sleep had the wind not begun to pick up. Threatening clouds had been building all evening and now they cut loose with a cold, driving rain. Pushed by the strong wind, even Helga’s protected campsite was not sufficient to provide shelter. Sharp, driving raindrops, nearly cold as ice, pelted the three beasts viciously. Worse, the driving rain soon produced a torrent running down from the rocky hills, flooding the campsite.

“Nothing to do but sleep up on the rocks,” Helga announced, “we won’t stay any drier here than we will out in the rain—might as well try to get out of the flood!”

Taking the lead, Helga climbed up the bare rock like the seasoned mountain dweller she was. Feeling her way along in the dark, she found a fairly broad and flat place to stop safely. Roolo and Bomper followed, scrambling up the rocks. Wishing for a tent, a cave, even a good clump of bushes to break the force of the driving rain, but having nothing by their stout hearts to protect them, they settled down, backs to the rain and heads tucked, to wait for dawn.

 

Christer’s Plan

Driving rain had pelted the struggling band of travelers since morning. Soaking in through every gap in the heavily-tarred storm-capes they wore, the cold rain added misery to every step Helga and her sea-beast companions took. More than a day of tramping had brought the party no closer than halfway to Dismal Pass, despite their urgent need to reach the sea-beast’s grounded ship. Soaked and exhausted from the difficult climb up the steep, jagged road to Dismal Pass, the struggling band needed to find shelter soon.

 “There, Mr. Tigg, there!” called out Bomper Spits loudly to Roolo Tigg, the Muskrat Mate who served as leader of the group.

Roolo peered intently through the rain, shading his eyes against the pelting drops. “Maybe, Mr. Spits, maybe,” he replied, seeming more to sense what Bomper was pointing out than to actually see it. “You lead the way, Mr. Spits, I’m only lucky enough to see my own nose. This cartnapp-wolloper-digglebust rain will blind me in both ears if it don’t let up soon!”

As they moved on, Helga became aware of what had drawn Bomper’s attention. It was not a sight, but a sound—a faint clink-clink-clink as if small stones were being tossed. The clinking pattern was unnatural. Surely some beast was making the sound. Who was it? And why?

It did not take long to discover the source of the sound. As the