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

father again, this was the choice he would also make in such circumstances.

From that time on, Helga moved toward the east. Each day, for the next month, Helga dragged herself toward the rising sun. To conserve energy and water, she traveled only a few hours in the morning and a few hours just before and after sunset, when it was cool but there was enough light to see the way. Little by little, each day Helga’s wounds improved. As she changed the mud and birdwood leaves dressing each day, she saw injuries that looked less ugly and she was freer from pain. But the deep damage was done. Her legs would not work fully and she had trouble controlling the use of one of her arms. Nevertheless, little by little, Helga learned to make the best of her arms.

Day after day, she half-crawled and pulled herself over the rough terrain. Living mostly on wild cherries and berries, Helga was gradually able to forage more widely as she gained strength. Sometimes she would find the carcasses of large pike and trout that eagles had caught but had only partially eaten. Making a small fire with her flint and some dried grass; she would roast the fish and hungrily feast on it.

As the days wore on and Helga steadily gained strength, she was able to increase her rate of travel. Each day now, she covered what she guessed was more than a mile. Her improved rate of progress, however, was still far too slow. Her clothes were quickly falling into tatters and the night temperatures were cold. She knew that she would have to do something else.

On the 14th day after the attack, Helga decided that she must try to stand. Using a tree to pull herself upright, excruciating pain shot through her legs. Gritting her teeth, she held on. Feeling dizzy and with tears filling her eyes, she tried desperately to maintain her balance. “DO NOT PASS OUT, HELGA! DO NOT PASS OUT! CALL ON THE ANCIENT ONES!” she commanded herself silently. Gradually, several minutes of shakiness passed. Helga’s legs were painful but, clinging to the tree, she found that she could steady herself.

Feeling greatly encouraged by her brief experiment, Helga slumped back to the ground. She realized that with the help of some support, she could learn to hobble. It might be painful, but at least she would make better progress. She had to be out of the mountains by winter or perish. Even without the onset of winter, the risks were great. Her best hope was to go on and find some kind of settlement. Surely the lands before her were not completely uninhabited.

 Despite her grim prospects, she felt strangely happy. “The pain is not enough to stop me,” she thought happily. “I was afraid that my legs would not hold me up, but I can hobble along. By the power of the Ancients, I think I can get through this...” Helga leaned back against a tree and began to consider her next move.

She planned to use her flicker-pole as a walking stick, but thought her progress would be faster if she could make a comfortable armrest for it. By the end of the day, she had located a sturdy scrub oak branch. She used a large rock as sandpaper to fashion a detachable armrest piece that attached to the flicker-pole, so she could use it more easily as a crutch. Helga picked this particular branch because it looked strong and had a curiously pleasant sound coming from one of its gnarled curves. Helga, in all her years as a Wood Cow, had never heard such a sweet, but unusual, tone in a piece of wood. It sounded like it would make a very comfortable crutch. Now her flicker-pole could be used both as a staff and as a crutch. Helga found that with this additional help, she could now make perhaps two miles a day. Still not great, but better.

She wondered if she would ever find help. How could she possibly survive in the wilderness like this? Although her wounds had gradually healed, she was losing weight from lack of proper food. The little food she could locate was mostly fruits and roots and sometimes a bit of scavenged fish. Lately, there had been no fish and she was reduced to turning over rocks and rotting logs to find grubs and beetles. When she found nice, fat grubs, she squashed them and squeezed the slippery goo through a piece of cloth, straining it. This she mixed with pollen she collected to make a paste. Adding some cherry juice made the taste palatable. Although it was surprisingly nutritious, she continued to lose weight and spent more time each day gathering food. It took a lot of grubs, pollen, and fruit to make enough paste to feed her. How long could she continue?

 

The Power of Enigma

Helga was lying in the shade of an aspen grove, taking a breather and listening to the pleasant music of the rustling leaves, when a different sound attracted her attention. Aahhhooo...oooooo...aaaahhhoooo...ooooo...ladoooooo...ladoooo...The sound was musical and soothing; it made her happy to hear it.

Struggling to a standing position, Helga picked up her pack and hobbled off in the direction of the music. “Creatures! Someone is playing music! Creatures!” Helga was so excited that she stumbled forward wildly, overjoyed at the thought that after so much suffering and trouble, help might be at hand.

Crashing through the brush, half-staggering, half-hobbling over rocks and fallen logs, Helga came upon a most startling sight. At the side of a beautiful mountain lake, a Wolf was hanging upside down by his feet, playing a flute! Helga stopped in amazement. She was speechless. Aahhhooo...oooooo...aaaahhhoooo...ooooo...ladoooooo...ladoooo...The music from the flute was simple and softly cheerful. In deep concentration of his playing, the Wolf had not noticed her, despite the noise Helga had made barging through the brush.

The Wolf was hanging in a perfectly vertical position, with his feet hooked over a tree branch, about ten feet above the ground. He was dressed in a loose-fitting, light green shirt and trousers, each with ruffled ties around the wrists and ankles to keep the garment in place while he was upside down. He wore a dark green sash around the waist. Helga noticed what appeared to be another dark green garment and some sandals on the ground under the tree. The flute was perhaps two feet long.

Helga stood for a time listening to the soothing music. She dropped her pack to the ground and sat down. It seemed wonderful that so strange a musician, with so simple an instrument, using nothing but air, could have such power over the heart. Helga felt as if the beauty of the scene and the melody of the flute were drawing all the struggles and pain of her days since leaving the Hedgelands away from her mind. Hunger and weariness vanished, and only as the sun fell lower in the sky did the flutist at last stop his playing. How many hours had passed? Helga did not know.

Suddenly, in one somersaulting leap, the Wolf had swung free of the tree and landed before her.

“And now yor best coome along with me,” the Wolf said. “Where have yor coome from? The mounts, those awful mounts, I’ll be born. What were yor doin’ there? Aiean, moony a poor body has been lost in those tumbled, coold, wildy mounts and never been foound.”

When Helga began to explain how she had come to be there, the Wolf raised his paws to stop her. “Aiean, it’s enough to know by the mercy of the Ancient Ones yor ever got oout. Comin’ along with me.” The Wolf slipped on the sandals and the dark green habit-style garment that had been lying under the tree.

While he did so, he let Helga hold his flute. It was beautifully made from aromatic red cedar. It had a long fringe running its entire length—the fringe was made of tassels strung with beads. She admired its beauty and longed to play it herself, but the Wolf said, “Wherever yor find there be music, the music be comin’...yor don’t need the flute. Findin’ the music first, then the flute be comin’ to the music!”

Slipping the instrument in a special pocket in his habit, the Wolf said, “My name be called Ola. Comin’ aloong now...Give me yorn pack. We’ll be getting’ you out of these mounts.” Helga handed her pack to Ola. He led her some distance through the rugged, but beautiful land. After a scrambling climb up a long hillside, they reached the top of a high ridge, and looked out over a vast reach of wetland valley reaching to the horizon. The end of the mountains!

They went a short distance down the far side of the ridge, leaving the high wall of the Don’ot Stumb Mountains to their backs. Ola walked slowly, allowing Helga to set the pace with her hobbling gait. He said nothing more, but walked with a dignity and kindly spirit that gave Helga more and more confidence in his goodness. As they walked along, Helga’s curiosity overcame her and she said, “Ola, where is your home?”

“The world bein’ such a wide-big world, the robe and the flute is my home, Misst Helgy,” Ola replied. Helga learned that Ola was a Gateless Wolf novice. The Gateless Wolf was one who practiced the ancient Wolf art called Enigma. Enigma was a nonviolent martial art in which the warrior used the power of riddles and anomalies to defeat an enemy, sometimes engaging in intense duels with an adversary using riddles as the only weapon.

Ola looked Helga intently in the eyes with the happy, but serious look that was characteristic of him. He gave her an example of Enigma: “You don’t often be seein’ many creatures in the wilds you came through—not even the Borf be comin’ there. But three days before you saw me at the lake, I be findin’ a Borf scoutin’ party there. And a fine Lynx was leadin’ it—and wearin’ the Borf clothing. Well, Misst Helgy, I’ll be a tellin’ you...there’s never been a Lynx among the Borf a’fore that...and a fine Lynx he was, too. But, I’m tellin’ you it was a deep, deep work of Enigma—a Lynx bein’ a Borf clanbeast? Lynx and the Borf bein’ together is like makin’ something from fire and snow...it’s a deep work of Enigma. I had to meditate on that powerful enigma for three days to understand it. Then you show up, and that’s my answer. I needed a deep enigma to be keepin’ me there by that lake long enough to help you. Without that enigma, you’d probably still be wanderin’ in the wilds.” Ola paused and smiled at his friend. “That’s the power of Enigma.”

Novices taking the path of the Gateless Wolf roamed the world freely, especially the remote wild areas where they could practice the disciplines of Enigma. The path of the Gateless Wolf had grown out of the violent traditions of the old clans of warrior Norder Wolves. Stressing physical endurance, artistic discipline, service to others, and the practice of Enigma as means to realize personal powers, they were renowned for their uncanny ability to be nearby when travelers were lost or creatures needed help.

Full-fledged followers of the Gateless Wolf path could hang by their feet from the edges of cliffs for days on end, playing their flute and solving enigmas. But, Ola explained, Gateless Wolves were not hermits. Whenever they passed through a community, they worked hard at whatever was needed: fieldwork, gardening, building or repairing cabins, caring for the young, cleaning, cooking, or whatever.

Ola’s happy, good-natured strength made Helga think of her father. It seemed as if Ola helped