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

turned his elegant damask coat inside out and, pulling it over himself and his precious hat, the insane sea-beast collapsed in a quivering mass, tucked tightly under his coat.

 

Helbara Freed

Katteo walked quickly to the Mis’tashe station house and entered, pushing open a heavy oaken door. She was surprised to find the place completely empty! She and Red Whale had understood that their comrades—slaves on their way to Tilk Duraow—were being held at the station. By way of the ruse Katteo and Red Whale had employed, they had succeeded in negotiating the purchase of their comrades with Milky Joe, in exchange for the plundered trallés. The ruse, however, having worked beyond the wildest hopes of Katteo and Red Whale, now seemed to offer the possibility of freeing their comrades without exchange of the valuable trallés!

This happy possibility required that their comrades actually be present at Mis’tashe, however, and Katteo’s heart fell as she surveyed the silent station-house. Had Milky Joe double-crossed them? Perhaps they had been lured into a trap and they were the ones who were victims of some grand performance? These doubts and fears rushed through Katteo’s mind as she struggled to grasp what had happened to her shipmates—essential parts of their plan!

“Who’s there?” came a voice, causing Katteo to startle. Wheeling around rapidly to view the entire room again, Katteo still saw no other creature. “Who’s there?” the voice asked again, coming from some unseen point nearby.

Searching more closely with her gaze, Katteo realized that the voice was coming from outside the station-house, the voice filtering in through an open window. Rushing outside, she found a female Wood Cow, with white shaggy hair falling down across her neck and shoulders, chained to the wall by a rusty chain attached to a roughly-made iron collar encircling her neck. She wore a dirty, wide-brimmed had with the brim rolled up tightly on one side.

“Dear beast!” Katteo cried, embracing the prisoner, feeling an immense bond of affection with the unknown captive. “Who are you?” Katteo asked urgently. “Are there others with you?”

“Slow there, friend,” the Wood Cow replied, smiling broadly. “I was asking the question first!” she laughed.

“I’m Katteo Jor’Dane, and with Captain Red Whale Gumberpott, we’ve come to free our comrades from the clutches of Milky Joe and his slavers! But, we’d expected to find them here and I’m troubled of mind that they seem to be nowhere around.”

“Oh, they’re here, all right,” the Wood Cow said. “I’m Helbara and I make it my business to know everything about the movement of slaves, trallés, and all that nasty business. You knew the route of the trallé caravan you raided, because I passed that information on to the Borf!”

Katteo was stunned. “You mean you—chained to the wall in this remote place—helped the raid we made?”

“Aye,” Helbara said proudly. “Why I consider this ring around my neck a certain sort of badge of honor! The more chains they put on me and the more they send me away to distant, unheard of places, the more I know they consider me dangerous to their filthy business! But they can’t figure out what I’m doing to them—Ha-Ha-Ha-Ho! They don’t see me doing anything and they won’t let me talk to anyone, but they sense that somehow I’m the cause of a lot of their caravans being plundered! Ha-Ha-Ha-Ho!”

“That’s pretty interesting, Helbara, but you’ll have to tell me more later,” Katteo interrupted. “We can’t count on our success lasting forever—we’ve got to find out friends and get everyone out of here!”

“The key to my collar is hanging on the wall inside behind the counter,” Helbara said. “Release me and I’ll lead you to your friends.”

As they were talking, Red Whale, his new friends, and their ranting prisoner arrived.

Breister rushed ahead of the others. As soon as he had seen Helbara in the distance, a delicious, electrifying bolt of recognition raced through him. In that moment, the image that had so long so haunted his dreams and life—the remembered beauty and delightful brown eyes of his treasured wife—leaped into the vivid present! The steadiness of mind and solid calmness in emergencies, so characteristic of Breister, failed him completely now. The iron ring around Helbara’s neck, the dirty, rusty chains holding her in such a dreadful place—powerless to veil the beautiful spirit and delightful smile—made his eyes swim with tears. He staggered forward the last few steps and embraced his beloved wife, weeping uncontrollably.

“Breister! Breister! Breister!” Hugging Breister close, Helbara happily called his name repeatedly, even as her eyes were fixed on a tall, young Wood Cow standing just behind Breister. The young beast’s frame was strong and tall, like Breister, but her large eyes were not the pale blue of her father, but the deep dark brown of her mother.

“Helga!” gasped Helbara, realizing the tall, mature Wood Cow was the daughter she had hidden away in the river to escape Wrackshee bondage ten years earlier!

“Mama!” Helga exclaimed.

In another moment, mother, father, and daughter were locked in each other’s arms, with joy and happiness that cannot be adequately described.

“What have they done to you?” sobbed Breister. “Get her out of these chains!”

“You all know each other!” Red Whale exclaimed, incredulously.

Breister, unable to reply, simply nodded his head from where it nestled over Helbara’s shoulder. The ironic contrast of his joyful, tearful face resting against the hard, rough iron collar around Helbara’s neck soon ended.

Returning with the key, Katteo handed it to Helga and she released her mother from her long bondage. As the iron ring fell free from Helbara’s neck, Red Whale pushed the still ranting Sabre Tusk forward. “There now,” Red Whale laughed, “don’t let that neck iron go to waste—just clap it around the neck of this here stark, raving mad freebooter!”

Click-Snap! As the iron ring clapped around Sabre Tusk’s neck, Helbara pulled back from her family’s embrace. “My work is not finished here,” she said firmly. “There will be much to tell and much to ask later,” she said. “But we must free the others and depart from here before trouble comes back our way—which it surely will before long!” Lifting her long-used hat from the peg where it hung, she firmly unrolled the brim as a sign that her bondage was ended, pulled the now full-brimmed hat on her head, and said, “Now we free your mates! But even that will not be easy.”

Leading the group to the far side of the station, Helbara pointed to a large wagon parked near the building. “Push that wagon out of the way,” she directed. “It is parked there to hide the entrance to the central square where the slaves are kept—your comrades are there.”

Toshty, Annie, and Helga fell to the task and rolled the wagon back away from the building. With the wagon removed, a large iron double-door was revealed. Helbara took the key that had opened her iron collar and fitted it to the lock on the door, smiling as the lock clicked open. “They use a single skeleton key for all their locks,” she laughed. “Not the best security plan, it seems!”

Helbara’s good cheer faded, however, as she gave further instructions to the group. “Have every weapon you carry at the ready—there’s no telling what will meet us when I open the door. There is an immense—nay, gigantic—nay, stupendous—monitor lizard guarding the entrance to the central square. As a bit of a joke, they call her Little Puss—though she is large enough to eat a couple of us in a single gulp!”

 Slowly opening one of the doors a crack, Helbara peered to the inside. “Yech!” she coughed as a revolting odor exhaled from the passage below. “Oh, by the Ancient Ones!” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “The stink of that monitor’s breath makes me woozy!” The presence of an immense monitor just beyond the iron double-doors was unmistakable to all: vicious hissing and snorting, jaws snapping, chains grinding, claws raking across stone, and leather straining under great pressure told the story.

Stepping forward, Red Whale opened the door a crack to get his own intelligence about the beast. The monitor was chained to a stake just inside the doorway, leaving no room to pass without coming within reach of the monitor’s jaws. Obviously fresh and vigorous, the giant lizard, seeing Red Whale peeking at it, moved into classic monitor attack mode. Dropping as close to the ground as possible, the monitor flattened its gigantic head and coiled into a crouching position, gathering itself to rush forward. Watching with a wary eye and flicking its tongue continuously, Little Puss clearly knew her plan better than Red Whale and his friends knew theirs.

“Wait a bit,” Red Whale cautioned, closing the door again. “I have an idea I’d like to explain.”

“It’s clear there’s no hope of moving past that dragon without a fight,” Red Whale began. “She’s determined that we won’t pass her, and there’s no way to our comrades without getting past her. That means, we need the best weapons we can muster—we’ve got to even the terms of battle or we will lose too many of us in the attempt. I won’t waste my crew in a futile struggle.”

All the other beasts agreed, but Helga asked, “So, what do you propose? All the weapons we have are either completely inadequate to defeating such a monster, or require us to go too close in our attack—why she’d rip off our arm before we could get in one lick with a cutlass!”

“That’s right,” Red Whale replied. “But we’ve got another possibility. We’ll send our own monitor down there to battle with Little Puss first, the terms will be uneven, but I think it’s our best chance to at least wear Little Puss down a bit before we take her on.”

Everyone agreed that Red Whale’s suggestion was a good one. But Helga had a question: “How do we know that our monitor will want to attack another monitor twice its size? Seems like the brute’s instinct for self-preservation might argue against that.”

“Aye,” Red Whale agreed, “and that’s why I’ll be ridin’ our monitor steed into battle! I’ll back ’er up a ways and give ’er all the spurrin’ I can to get ’er goin’ fast—then, just before we reach the door, you throw it open, and I’ll ride her straight as an arrow right at Little Puss before she has a chance to skitter. Catch ’em both by surprise—that’s our best chance.”

“But what about you, Red Whale?” all the beasts exclaimed in unison. “You’re makin’ yourself dragon bait!”

“Now don’t you go worryin’ about Captain Gumberpott,” Red Whale replied. “I’m still captain in this here crew and I’ll be makin’ the decisions, and my decision is that I’m the one who’ll be takin’ the chances first—even if this plan works, there’ll still be plenty of chances to take before we’re past that monster. So just furl your sails for a moment—you can charge off into battle very soon—but let’s see if we can soften up the enemy a bit first.”

Walking over to where the monitor steed was tethered, Red Whale patted the faithful lizard on the head and said, “Now don’t take what’s going to happen as if I don’t care for you, ol’ beast—I just need you to take a bit of a chance with me.” Mounting up, Red Whale looked around as his friends and, giving the monitor a deep dig in the flanks, shot forward to meet Little Puss.

Scuttling rapidly across the open area toward the iron doors, Red Whale’s monitor steed was reaching full speed, when Helga and Helbara threw the iron doors open. The monitor suddenly stopped dead in its tracks just at the open doorway, looking straight at Little Puss. Flicking