Helga: Out of Hedgelands - Rick Johnson (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

some distance into the forests on the dry side of the ridge, lies a caravan way-station, Mis’tashe. Caravans travel back and forth between Port Newolf, on the Great Sea, and the Hedgelands, carrying slaves and trallés. They halt at Mis’tashe to take on food and water.” He could see from his friend’s intent gaze that Bad Bone was listening with great interest.

“The Borf never attack the caravans in that region. The terrain is too difficult and there is no easy escape with captured trallés—there are more favorable places to launch our raids,” he continued. “The caravan masters know they are safe at the way-station, so they do not mount heavy guards.” He pointed at the map with a stick, tracing a route. “A skilled climber like you can approach the caravan rest stop from this direction. I want you to lead a small scouting party and see what a trallé caravan looks like—you will need this understanding to help us later in our raids. Are you ready for such a mission?”

“Fitted with iron in my knees, and fire in my eyes, brother!” Bad Bone declared.

“I ask you to take Bormarojey and Bormaso,” Borjent directed, naming two seasoned Borf Squirrels that Bad Bone knew well. “You will put the ‘dead beast’s eye’ on the caravan,” he instructed. “No one pays attention to the gaze of a dead beast,” he explained, seeing Bad Bone’s quizzical look. “You are to scout the caravan with such stealth that you are noticed as much as the gaze of a dead beast.” Giving thorough instructions with the assistance of the map, Borjent directed that the scouting party leave immediately. “You will rejoin us at our home camp in not more than five days,” he concluded. The beasts going with you are well-used to the route. You will do well.” So saying, he left the Lynx to reflect on all he had learned and prepare himself for his mission.

Finishing his simple repast, Bad Bone went to gather the other members of his scouting party. He found the two Squirrels sitting at the bottom of a tiny waterfall spilling out of a crevice in the rock above them. Holding gourd cups under the falls, they used gulps of cold water to wash down the dry snake meat they were eating.

Calling to Bormarojey and Bormaso, he told them of their mission. Silently, a general smile moved across their faces. They were pleased to go with Bad Bone on the proposed journey. Bormaso spoke what was in the heart of both Borf Squirrels: “That a Lynx goes with Borf to cast the dead beast’s eye on one of the High One’s caravans is something new under the sun. The High One’s sleep will be disturbed before he hears the last of this.”

 

Casting the Dead Beast’s Eye

Scuttling forward on their bellies, Bad Bone and his companions peeked out from the protecting cover of pine trees and ferns. Not far away, crowds of unsavory looking beasts—mostly Wolves and Cougars, with a sprinkling of Mink—loitered around three sturdy, but well-worn log buildings. Food was being served on tin plates handed out through the large window of a cabin used as a canteen. Smithy beasts labored to repair broken wagon fittings and applied grease to wheels. Here and there, Skull Buzzards kept watch over lines of trallés roped together, while handlers led the high-domed tortoises, 2 or 3 at a time, to the livery barn for water and to get their feet checked. Several Royal Patrol officers sat around a table on the porch of a two-story log inn, talking with a richly-dressed Wolf, near whom knelt four Mink servants.

Rows of peddlers’ tents jammed a narrow alley between the inn and the livery. Bad Bone’s attention was drawn particularly to a middle-aged female Wood Cow, who sat under a tree near the livery, carving wagon wheel spokes. Her bearing and manner were familiar—“she’s a Wood Cow from the Hedgelands, or I have no sense in my head,” he thought. Looking more closely, he could see that the Wood Cow’s long white shaggy hair, falling down across her neck and shoulders, almost hid an iron collar encircling her neck. Through the shadows, his eyes could make out a chain attached to the collar. “Helga’s mother! She’s a prisoner!” Bad Bone breathed softly.

“A slave, you mean,” Bormarojey whispered. “She’s well-known to us—a legend, actually—name of Helbara. She caused some trouble for the High One many years ago, and she and her family were sold as slaves. When the Buzzards came to take them, she fought like a thousand demons to protect her family. In the end, they all escaped except her. The High One ordered her to be kept as his personal household slave—to humiliate her. But she sang such mournful songs and called so loudly on the Ancient Ones day and night, that no one in the royal household could sleep. He sent her to this remote caravan way-station, hoping that would be the end of her trouble-making.”

Bormarojey paused as some Skull Buzzards looked a little too attentively toward their hiding place. They soon turned away, however, and showed no further sign of suspicion, so he continued his story. “This is a perfect place for her,” he said, grinning at Bad Bone. “The High One has forgotten her, thinking that this distant exile was the end of her...Which suits our purposes fine!” he added with a slight chuckle.

“How does that poor beast being in slavery suit any good purpose?” Bad Bone asked.

“See the hat that Helbara is wearing?” Bormarojey asked. “You see the brim is rolled on one side? Rolled brim in front, the caravan is bound for Shell Kral; rolled brim at the back, it’s going to Hedgelands via Port Newolf; and if the hat is hanging on a peg, it’s going to Hedgelands via the Norder Passage. The reason we come here to scout is to learn which caravans we will raid later on!”

“She helps you to raid the royal caravans?” Bad Bone exclaimed, struggling to keep a low voice, despite his astonishment. “Don’t they get suspicious when their caravans constantly get robbed?”

“Here’s the deal,” his Squirrel companion replied. “We don’t raid all the caravans. There’s no pattern to our attacks. Even Helbara doesn’t know when we come to ‘cast the dead beast’s gaze’ on the way-station. She puts up her signals and never knows which ones we see—but she hears about the raids from the furious traders.” Bormarojey grinned widely. “The High One doesn’t suspect that the slave he humiliated and banished now guides Borf raiders to plunder his trallés!”

 

 

Lost Hiker’s Delusion

Bad Bone was puzzled. Something about the surrounding landscape seemed more familiar than it ought to be. The Borf party was returning over the same route they had traveled the day before and nothing had struck him as familiar on their earlier passage. He had never visited this region of the Hedgelands before. Why did what he was seeing now seem so very familiar?

As they trekked along on their return to Tramandrivot, Bad Bone’s mind worked on this puzzle. Then, gradually the answer came to him. “Ah, yes,” he thought ruefully, “the lost hiker’s delusion.” As an experienced mountain climber, well-schooled in the ways of the wilderness, he knew that his puzzlement resulted from the same problem that often caused inexperienced hikers to become lost. “The perspective is different coming and going,” he thought. “Many a poor hiker has learned how very different the same mountains and trees look when approached from the opposite direction.” This was the answer to his puzzlement. “What looked strange and new when we approached from the north, now looks familiar as we return from the south!” Yet, some of his puzzlement remained. “But why does it look familiar from this direction, when I’ve never walked this way before?”

He could not shake the mystery. Again and again he tried out possible solutions in his mind. Nothing seemed to answer the question. Then, when the party paused to rest and take food near a beautiful lake, he asked a question. “Does this area live in any of the legends you have heard?”

Bormaso, lying on his back under a tree, lazily pointed at a peak to the right of where they were stopped with the salted lizard tail he was gnawing. “That peak looks like a javelin point from this direction,” he observed. “The grandmothers always tell us that the javelin point flies fast to where it is going. They say that in the ancient times the folk rode the javelin point to sail like the wind through the mountains...”

“...riding the great river that flows down from Javelin Point—standing up in boats that never touched the water,” Bad Bone broke in, finishing the sentence.

Bormaso grinned. “Yes. I see you know the legend also.”

“My grandmother told me the story as a wee beast,” Bad Bone replied simply. “I never paid much attention to it, but the image of beasts standing up in boats that never touch the water always seemed strange and wonderful—I’ve never forgotten it.” He paused, gazing off at the peak that had become the focus of his thoughts. “And the javelin point shape of that peak is so unmistakable from the stories I heard countless times, that it looked familiar to me. I guess the legend had more effect on me than I realized,” he chuckled.

The three friends lounged silently for a time, then Bad Bone spoke up. “Do you think perhaps there is such a river? I mean, one that makes the beasts fly through the mountains like it says in the old story?”

“I have sailed on it,” Bormaso said quietly. “The river definitely exists.”

“What?” Bad Bone exclaimed. “The legend is true?”

“Wait, wait!” Bormaso replied. “Not so fast. To say that the river exists is not to say the legend is true. There definitely is a mighty river that flows down off of Javelin Point. I have sailed on it—and a fearsome ride it is. Rapids such as would frighten most beasts to death...Unclimbable cliffs...Skull Buzzards...It’s a terrible, terrible place.”

“But you rode the river,” Bad Bone said. “Where does it go?”

“That I cannot say,” the Borf Squirrel replied. “As a young beast, I was captured by a Lynx slave trader during a raid and sold.” Bad Bone’s face showed pained surprise. Bormaso looked with kindness at him. “You surely know that some of the Lynx are slave catchers and traders, yes?” 

Bad Bone looked away and did not answer. Bormaso, sensing that Bad Bone wanted a moment to himself, took a swig from the water pouch. He was wiping his mouth when his Lynx friend said, “My family has always served the High One, but we are Climbing Lynx, not slavers. I have served the High One honorably, but have never been cruel to any beast. I regret what other Lynx do, but they are not my folk.”

Bormaso put a comforting paw on Bad Bone’s arm. “I do not accuse you of being a slaver,” he replied. “You are now a Borf brother and we have no reason to think ill of each other. I see it as a great sign from The All that a Lynx is now my Borf brother. Welcome, brother,” he concluded, hugging Bad Bone around the shoulder.

The three scouts sat quietly together for a few moments, then Bormaso continued: “While being transported to the Hedgelands along the Norder Passage, our boat capsized and I escaped with several other slaves. Thus, I did not ride the river its full course, and it was a long time ago. I don’t know where the river goes. I only know it must be the one mentioned in the legends.”

“What do you know of the Norder Passage?” Bad Bone asked.

“There is an