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

mountains. Unlike the deep canyons and ravines that had just been passed, the broad slightly rolling plain was mostly level. In the distance, off to the left, a curious cloud of dust was rising from just beyond a slight rise in the land, sufficient to hide its source. It was moving fast, like a fire spreading rapidly toward the caravan route. Despite the urgency of her frantic flight, the distant rising dust cloud had an uneasy fascination. There could be no doubt that the dust cloud was moving rapidly toward the dragon train. There also could be no doubt that something remarkable—stupendous—must be causing it. Whatever it was, Helga could easily see that the path of the dragon train would intersect the course of the dust cloud in a matter of minutes.

The caravan could not easily alter its motion, despite Helga’s growing apprehension. And, of course, a halt would be certain death for her. Frantic terror kept her plunging forward. Gradually a curious clacking rumble joined the sound of her ragged, gasping breath, the pounding of her feet on the road, and the clattering, hissing caravan trailing behind her. Casting brief fascinated glances toward the dust cloud as she ran, an astonishing sight gradually unfolded before Helga’s eyes.

Mudpot had also heard the eerie sound and seen the rising dust long before the source came into view. He knew immediately what it was. “Godgie Stomp!” he cursed silently to himself. “Godgies running! Stomp coming!” As a slight tremble ran across his hardened face, a huge frenzied herd of Godgie lizards surged into sight over the rise that had previously hidden its advance. Tens of thousands of Godgies were running pell-mell toward the road at terrific speed. “Godgies stomping!” Mudpot yelled. “We’re lost! We’ll be sliced to ribbons! We’ll be chopped to bitsy pieces by their claws!” But there was little that could be done. Mudpot’s yells seemed swallowed within the increasing roar of thousands of claws clacking across the rocky ground.

Against the eerie sound that was rapidly increasing to a terrific roar, Helga kept doggedly on in her race for life. One glance at the onrushing horde of Godgies told Helga there was no escape for the caravan. As far as she could see, the plain was dark with the streaming horde of onrushing Godgies. It was as if a massive ocean wave were coming and there was no escaping. She could stop and be torn to pieces within moments by the monitors at her back or keep running in the hope the Godgies might turn aside at the sight of the monitor train.

The dragon train route crossed the path of the annual Godgie migration to their nesting grounds. Godgie lizards—long, sleek, and capable of incredible speed—weighed only about four pounds. The free-spirited Godgies usually lived apart as loners or in small bands. But in the annual migration to the nesting grounds, they joined in herds of tens of thousands—sometimes as many as 200,000 in a single herd. The migrating herds bolted across the Flats at a frenzied pace. There was no food on the Godgie Stomp Flats so the herds crossed rapidly to reach the nesting grounds on the other side.

The running of the monitor trains usually avoided the annual Godgie Stomp, but the long rains this year had delayed the caravans far too long. As soon as the rains stopped, Mudpot ran out his monitor train, hoping to beat the first herds of the Stomp. It was running a risk to cross now, but financial ruin was the alternative. Waiting until the final stomping herds had passed would delay the caravan for several more weeks. It was a gamble that the Dragon Boss and Monopole had taken and the gamble had now been lost. As Mudpot watched the vast Godgie herd descending upon his caravan, he knew the caravan was doomed.

Racing toward the monitor train, tens of thousands of Godgies swarmed in a maddened surge across the plain. Gooodg-Oog-looo! Oog-Oog-looo! The low “goooodg-oog-looo” calls of the surging Godgies, combining with the clacking claws of the advancing multitude, ripped the air with a surreal unbroken thunder. Although the Godgies were relatively small, the vast stampeding herd caused the earth to fairly tremble.

As the leading edge of the Godgie horde closed on the monitor train, Mudpot could see the gleaming yellow eyes and rapidly flicking tongues of those in the front rank. The great mass of rushing lizards followed the leaders at the front and the leaders followed ancient instinct. Whether the leaders were actually leading the surging herd or being pushed by the unstoppable pressure from behind did not matter.

When the flood of lizards hit the caravan, the Godgies streamed over and through the monitor train as if it were just another part of the landscape. Hissing and twisting violently as the Godgie’s claws raked across their backs and heads, the monitors lashed out with their jaws. Straining at their harness, they broke free and all-out bedlam ensued.

Mudpot, at the center of the dust and chaos, was overrun and knocked to the ground by the frenzied jumping and skittering herd. A shower of sand and gravel kicked up by the Godgies’ feet pelted Mudpot in the face. Any vision of the horizon or the sky lost beneath the endless, ever-widening waves of Godgies, he struggled to rise, yelling and trying to swing his whip. Choked by dust, clothes slit to ribbons by numberless clawed feet running across him, bleeding as if cut twice across every inch of his body, he sank helplessly beneath the onslaught.

The monitors, famished after their long run, struck out ferociously at the Godgies swarming over them. Frenzied confusion erupted as the hungry monitors lashed out with their massive jaws. One hapless Godgie after another was snapped in half by the monitors’ razor-sharp teeth. But the vast herd kept coming, oblivious to any danger.

When the first wave of Godgies hit the caravan, the monitors went berserk. Snapping and slashing with their teeth, they twisted with all their strength in their harness, trying to catch the Godgies in their powerful jaws. In the first seconds of this chaos, one of the monitors directly behind Helga jerked at the harness with such power that one side of it snapped. Sensing the new freedom of movement, the monitor gave a sharp slashing bite at the other side of the harness with his teeth. The tough harness did not break under the bite, but it was weakened enough that when the monitor yanked back the other direction to catch a Godgie it, too, snapped.

The leading team of monitors was now free and began feasting on Godgies. It would have been better for them to run. Like a single massive wave, the Godgie horde overwhelmed the  monitors with the sheer power of an unending rush of bodies. Snapping and chomping at the Godgies, ever fighting, never wearying, still not even the ferocious monitors could stop the Godgies or turn aside their flight. Soon, they, too, lay silent beneath the still surging horde.

When the harness had snapped, Helga had pulled with all her might and she, too, became free from the caravan harness. Unlike the monitors, Helga sensed that her only hope was to keep running, just as she had been running—but this time at the head of the Godgie Stomp! Flying like the wind, with Godgies running all around her, Helga again was running as if her life depended on it. She realized that running with the Godgies was the only way to keep from being trampled by the Stomp. And off she went, forcing her exhausted body to its maximum speed, running neck and neck with the Stomp.

 

Reginald to the Rescue

When Captain Red Whale Gumberpott and Fishbum first slipped over the side of the Daring Dream to escape the coming onslaught of the Wrackshees, neither had any idea what they would do next.

“Quiet now, Fishbum, my good mate,” Red Whale whispered as they struggled against the eddies surrounding their ship. “Let’s head to the stern and cling to the rudder until we see what’s about,” Red Whale continued. “Once we see what’s up, we’ll make a plan.”

“What if they slaughter the crew?” Fishbum asked, sorrowfully.

“Now, mate, are you thinkin’ Capt’ Red Whale would have abandoned his crew to be slaughtered in their sleep? Oh, ya pain me, Fishbum! Why, I’d never have slid over the side on a night like that! No, there’ll be no blood runnin’ this night—them Wrackshees want slaves, not dead beasts. We goes over the side to have a chance of savin’ the crew, not to let ’em be roasted!”

Time was shorter than desired, however. Red Whale had not completed cheering up his mate when the first of the Wracksee kayaks came around the bow. Seeing the outlines of the Wrackshees against the same starry sky he’d looked on with such joy shortly before, Red Whale motioned silently to Fishbum. Taking deep gulps of air, they submerged silently and followed the side of the ship underwater toward the stern. Surfacing twice to take nips of fresh air, Red Whale and Fishbum reached the rudder without causing notice.

Clinging to the rudder chains, heads low and in the shadows, they listened to the nearly soundless attack of the Wrackshees. The Wrackshees approached the Daring Dream at speed, but so quietly that Red Whale guessed they mush have their paddles wrapped to muffle the sound. The kayaks approached and encircled the ship completely. Red Whale noted that most of the Wrackshee boats were highly maneuverable, one-beast kayaks, capable of swift and agile attack. Behind the on-rushing wave of attackers, he also could see several large catamarans and some smaller, single-sail skiffs. He took note that the catamarans hung back, taking no part in the attack, and that each skiff carried two Wrackshee archers. The skiffs took up position within bow range at regular points around Daring Dream, apparently to provide cover for the attackers if needed.

When the circle was complete, the majority closed on the ship and the attackers used small grappling hooks to secure climbing ropes on all sides. As soon as the hooks were thrown, the Wrackshees threw flash gourds up on the deck. As explosions rocked the Daring Dream, the attackers leapt up the ropes and boarded the ship from all sides.

Because Red Whale and Fishbum had been the ship’s watch detail, the surprise was complete. The crew ran up from their bunks below, but in complete confusion. Unprepared for an attack, and finding the main deck swarming with an over-whelming force of Wrackshees, the crew surrendered without violence. A huge Wrackshee, with bulging arms and a head of long, shaggy orange hair, shouted in a lion-like, roaring voice, so that all the outlying Wrackshee kayaks might hear: “The ship is ours! Kayaks to the side—come to me! There’ll be no escaping now. Every beast is subdued and disarmed—and such a liver-hearted, sleepy-headed crew! Such a sorry lot o’ sea-beasts I never saw! Why they’re so easy o’ surrender that we’ve no need to scrape the decks with their heads! Who is the weak-kneed captain here?”

“That would be myself,” Katteo Jor’Dane announced boldly, stepping forward.  “And might I inquire if you are you the slug-brained chief of these smelly thugs?” she continued sarcastically.

The Wrackshee leader tilted his head and eyed Katteo dangerously. “And who might this be who’s first to be volunteerin’ for me to scrape the deck with her face?” Although the main drift of the question was decidedly unpleasant, the look betrayed surprise and uncertainty.

Katteo was quick to pick up on the surprised curiosity in the Wrackshee’s look. “Aye, mate,” Katteo said with a rasping, threatening voice, “we sliced the spleens of our previous Captain into ribbons and fed him to the sharks. Then