Where Gods Fear to Go

by Angus Watson

  A manic child becoming a stately ruler, thought Sitsi. The hills were alive with metaphor.

  “The squatch will catch us on this terrain,” said Sofi when they paused to eat.

  “You think they’re still following?” Sitsi looked back up the slope. “The avalanche would have slowed them a lot. Surely they’ve given up?”

  There are other routes, thought Ayla, and squatch do not like to be thwarted. They will be chasing.

  “Then we build rafts,” said Erik.

  “This stream wouldn’t take a canoe, let alone a raft,” Sofi replied.

  Erik looked up at the high valley sides. “Give it a while,” he replied. “This stream will be a river soon and we’ll be able to float away.”

  Erik was both right and wrong. The stream did broaden rapidly into something that an optimist might have called a river, and it would probably have been navigable, had it not been for the beaver dams every few hundred paces.

  “We could smash the dams as we go?” suggested Keef.

  “Nope,” said Yoki Choppa.

  “Do you worship them or something?” Keef rolled his eye.

  “We don’t worship beaver any more than you do,” Paloma replied for the warlock, “but we do know a lot more about everything. Smashing the dams wouldn’t speed our passage, because the part you can see is only the top. Under the water the beavers’ homes are strong enough to survive a flash flood or a hunger-maddened bear. You’d be quicker crawling backwards down the hill than to canoe and smash every dam on the way.”

  “Even with Arse Splitter?”

  “Tell you what,” Paloma suggested, “why don’t you and Arse Splitter stay here and destroy this dam, then catch us up and tell us how long it took?”

  “Can’t do that. Only Arse Splitter and me can save you from the squatch.”

  “We could carry the rafts around the dams?” suggested Erik.

  “We could,” said Sofi, “but it would be quicker to walk.”

  So they half walked, half jogged along the widening river. Paloma ran back up the mountain to see how their pursuers were doing.

  When the sky was beginning to pink in the west, Wulf jogged up to join Sofi and Sitsi.

  “Let’s make rafts.” he said. “We haven’t passed a dam for a good mile. We can walk round any that we do come to. Plus there’s good wood around here.” He nodded at a stand of fir trees.

  “We’re making reasonable progress,” said Sofi. “Building rafts will take time.”

  “True, but on rafts we’ll be able to go all night. We can sleep and steer in shifts.”

  “That,” said Sofi, “is a good point. Any squatch in sight, Sitsi?”

  Sitsi looked back the way they had come. She caught a glimpse of Paloma a few miles upslope, chasing a herd of elk around a grassy knoll.

  “I think we’re okay for now,” she said.

  Paloma joined them before they’d cut down more than a couple of trees.

  “The squatch turned back before the divide,” she said.

  How do you know? asked Ayla.

  “Tracks.”

  Squatch don’t tend to give up. They do tend to falsify tracks and follow a different path.

  They looked around. To the west the sky was fiery red. The tree-lined river was busy with humming insects and feasting birds. There was no sign of squatch, but they’d already seen how good the creatures were at concealing themselves.

  Chapter 6

  A New Hope

  Wootah and Calnians floated through the night. The air warmed as they bobbed downstream, the woods were increasingly fragrant and the screeches and growls of nocturnal wanderers ever more frequent. Some of the Wootah slept briefly, but all had to wake a few times to carry the rafts round dams, to push across gravel shallows and to circumnavigate a waterfall. The going was, however, relatively easy and they covered many more miles than they would have done walking tired in the dark.

  Ayla ran alongside the river, proving, Finn the Deep couldn’t help notice, how easily squatch could keep up with rafts.

  In the morning they stopped for breakfast, to improve the rafts and construct one more, and to provision so that they wouldn’t need to stop again for a while.

  Returning from relieving himself in the bushes, Finn met Ayla.

  I am going back now, she thought.

  I thought you were going to visit your sister?

  Ayla sighed and looked towards the mountains. That’s not why I left my father’s tribe. I want to be with the children. Ottar is a very special boy. And Freydis… perhaps Freydis is even more special.

  Why do you say that?

  No one reason.

  So come with us and see if you’re right.

  No. My father won’t give up. His pride has been stung and he has nothing else to do. He and the other squatch will chase us. They’ll enjoy it, they won’t tire and they will catch you. Unless I go back and stop them.

  But they’ll kill you, thought Finn.

  I don’t think so. My father will remember that I am his daughter. I may be able to persuade them that you’re not worth it.

  Thanks!

  I think you’re worth it.

  What if you can’t persuade them?

  Then I will fight my father. He is old. I will defeat him.

  But you know this territory, we need you.

  Ottar knows where you’re going. He knows where to find my sister Taanya. She has lived over here for a while and should know what’s happening in The Meadows. She might even know how you can defeat whatever it is. She is difficult, but she is intelligent.

  You can speak to Ottar?

  Yes.

  Directly?

  No, I have to go through Freydis, same as everyone else.

  That’s strange.

  I’d love to stay and wonder about it with you, but I’ve got to go. Please say farewell to the others for me. I would do it myself, but I don’t like goodbyes.

  But… thought Finn, but Ayla was off, loping up the hill.

  Finn returned to the riverbank to find Bodil standing by a tree, shaking her hands, looking like she didn’t know what to do with herself.

  “Ottar’s found a monster in the bushes,” she explained, pointing shakily downstream. Finn headed off.

  He met Keef. “What’s Ottar found?” He asked.

  “Big insect.”

  “An insect?” Typical of Bodil to get in a tiz about nothing, thought Finn.

  He climbed a rise between leafy trees and found the others on a flattened area of reeds. By the stink that assaulted his nostrils, it wasn’t an insect. It took a sizeable dead animal to produce that level of ming. Chogolisa heard him coming and stood aside so he could have a look.

  “Ah,” he said.

  It did look like an insect, but it was bigger than a man. It had hands like a man, on the end of insectoid limbs. One limb was thrown over its head. This one ended in a huge black pincer.

  Flies feasted on the goo that leaked from its smashed head.

  “That pincer could cut me in half,” said Finn.

  “It’s the wings I’m worried about,” said Thyri.

  Fuck, yes, thought Finn. He’d thought it was lying on a leathery black sheet, but Treelegs was right. So the thing could fly.

  “If I was as slow as you lot I’d be worried about its stinger too,” Paloma shoved the beast over with a foot, to reveal a long, pointed, black sting protruding from its lower back.

  “I hope there aren’t any more of these wasp men,” said Sassa, looking west.

  Everyone followed her gaze. Nobody said anything, but Finn knew what they were thinking. You don’t get just one of any animal. There were likely to come across a whole lot more, and a whole lot worse, before they got very much further.

  “We’ll be ready,” said Sofi. “Come on, let’s get going before the squatch catch up.”

  They walked back to the rafts, debating who’d go on which now that they’d made an extra one.

  Back at the river, Finn
saw Ottar grab Wulf and look around with his hands open. He seemed to be asking where?

  “Anyone seen Ayla?” asked Wulf.

  “Oops, sorry, I meant to say,” said Finn. He’d been thinking about the wasp man, specifically how much he didn’t want a flock of them flying at him, and had forgotten about Ayla leaving. Not great.

  “What?” asked Wulf.

  Ottar looked at him, blue eyes huge and worried.

  “She’s gone.”

  Ottar blinked tears.

  “She said we’ve got to find her sister. She says you’ll know the way, Ottar. Do you know the way?”

  Ottar’s glare was so full of rage that Finn took a step back. The boy screamed at him, and Finn braced himself for an attack, but instead the little Wootah threw his head back and wailed.

  “Don’t cry!” Finn tried. “We’ll see her again, I’m sure, and maybe her sister’s even nicer and—”

  He felt a gentle pressure on his arm and looked down.

  “Let him cry,” said Freydis. “He’ll stop soon.”

  Ottar the Moaner was still snivelling several hours later. Finn knew because, surprise surprise, he was on Ottar’s raft. His other boat mates were Freydis the Annoying, Yoki Choppa and Paloma Pronghorn. At least Paloma was meant to be on their raft, but so far she’d been running alongside the river, scouting the nearby hills, and hadn’t so much as laid a toe on the raft that she was meant to be crewing.

  They had a brief stop in the early afternoon next to a large pile of washed-up timber to repair and improve their craft. Finn took the opportunity to ask Wulf if there could perhaps be a warrior on his raft, in case they came across living wasp men or any other nasties.

  “You’ve got Paloma,” he replied.

  “Theoretically, but she hasn’t actually been on the raft yet. She’s always scouting.”

  “Then you’ve got you. Finn the Deep, wielder of Foe Slicer, slayer of the squatch, giant serpent scarcer, and pigeon-controlling saviour of all of us. What’s to worry about?”

  “Giant insects with claws that will take your head off and stings that’ll do Loakie knows what?”

  “Can you see any of those around?”

  A gold-tinted, striped squirrel stretched out on a nearby rock. Behind it was a grassy meadow filled with yellow flowers where a herd of elk peacefully grazed.

  “It’s too quiet,” said Finn.

  “It’s not. If it were too quiet, there’d be no squirrels or elk.”

  “It probably won’t stay like this. Can you ask Paloma to stop running about so much and stay on our raft?”

  “No. She’s scouting, and, anyway, I can’t tell her what to do.”

  “How about putting Thyri on our raft?”

  “Finn.” Wulf put a hand on his shoulder. “Neither Thyri nor Paloma want to be on your boat. And you don’t need them. Come to terms with that, my friend, and you’ll have a happier voyage.”

  They travelled on, rafts bobbing along on the current. Night came but Finn was awake, thinking about what Wulf had said. He sat with Foe Slayer on his lap all through the dark and watched the sky become grey, then pink, then fiery red.

  The others woke. Ottar seemed happier.

  They floated past grassland and woods draped over low, craggy hills. Otters and muskrats plopped into the water as they passed, the odd bear and wolf watched them go by and Freydis said that she saw a lion.

  The sky seemed lower and bluer than it had been to the east of the Shining Mountains. Perhaps, Finn thought with a shudder of fear, it was caused by the force at The Meadows. He scanned for flying monsters but saw only chubby bankside birds and eagles wheeling over hills.

  Wulf, Keef and Erik didn’t seem too worried. They spent most of their time in the water, larking about and swimming from raft to raft. Finn felt no urge to join them. He was ready to protect his raft–which Paloma didn’t ever set foot on. Who knew where she slept, but it wasn’t on the raft. She appeared on the bank every now and then, shouted that there was no sign of the squatch, wasp men or any other evils, and ran off again.

  By mid-morning, Finn was beginning to relax and even considering taking a nap. Of course, about twenty heartbeats later, they passed a destroyed village. Only one hut remained intact, and that had a smashed human skeleton hanging upside down from its roof. Freydis and Ottar were already gawping at it by the time Finn thought to cover their eyes.

  “Animals have eaten the flesh, fat, muscles and brains,” Freydis told Ottar, “so that it can all go back into the ground and become life again.”

  “Should we stop?” Erik yelled from the rearmost raft.

  “There’s nobody living.” Sofi called back from the leading craft. “And we have all the kit we need. Let’s carry on.”

  By the third evening they’d passed several more broken and deserted settlements, but seen no more monsters, dead or alive, nor any sign of squatch pursuit. They beached the rafts on a grassy island crowned with a copse of broadleaf trees. Sofi declared that they would sleep on dry land to give everyone a proper rest. They arranged the rafts so that they were ready to launch in a heartbeat and set double watches.

  After three days’ almost constant motion, none of them could walk straight. Ottar and Freydis squealed with delight to see elegant Sofi, mighty Chogolisa and prim Sitsi zigzagging from place to place. Wulf hammed it up with “whooahs!” and “whoopses!” and the children laughed so much that Finn feared they might choke.

  Ottar and Freydis were still laughing long after everyone was walking normally again.

  “Sofi was like this!” laughed Freydis, pouting sombrely, sticking out out her arse and wiggling it from side to side.

  A raised eyebrow from the captain of the Owsla stopped the mimicry but not the giggling.

  After they’d eaten, Finn steeled himself to ask Thyri if she would train with him.

  “Sure thing,” she said, even smiling a little as she did so.

  They rafted across the narrow channel, found a flat area of grass and sparred, watched from a treeline some hundred paces distant by a couple of foxes. They trained hard. Finn focused on all he’d learned and almost succeeded in not considering how wonderful Thyri looked in her scanty battle gear, jumping about with her sax blade flashing in the low sun.

  “You’ve imporved,” she said after he’d blocked a dozen of her thrusts.

  “I guess I’ve realised that we might be fighting some serious monsters soon.”

  “We’ve fought thunder lizards and dagger-tooth cats.”

  “Yeah, but then I just had to make friends with some birds.”

  “Don’t do yourself down, Finn. You beat a squatch with your sword.”

  “I tricked him.”

  “Trickery is a major part of it. If you—” she swung her blade upwards and wapped him in the bollocks with the flat of it before he even knew it was coming.

  It wasn’t hard, but it was hard enough. He dropped his sword, spread his knees, cupped his balls with both hands and opened and closed his mouth in a silent scream.

  “As is staying on your guard,” said Thyri, smiling at him properly for the first time, it seemed, since Garth Anvilchin had died.

  When they returned, the Owsla were wet-haired, sitting by the fire to dry. None of them looked happy. Even Sitsi was scowling.

  “What happened?” Finn asked Chogolisa.

  “Talisa White-tail died in the Water Mother because she couldn’t swim. Sofi doesn’t want the same thing happening to us.”

  “Why so glum? Swimming’s fun.”

  “Not when you can’t do it,” said Chogolisa.

  “But it’s easy.”

  “Everything becomes more difficult when you’re old,” said Thyri. “Swimming, fighting, not being a dick–it’s all much easier to learn when you’re a child. I’m sure you agree, Finn?”

  She walked away, not even sparing him a glance to see if he agreed.

  “You’re not a dick,” said Chogolisa.

  “Thanks.”

  He
sat next to the big woman, in comfortable silence, watching Yoki Choppa teaching Freydis how to cook, and showing her how he burned things in his alchemical bowl.

  All things considered, Finn didn’t think he was a dick. Not any more, anyway. Not any more than everybody else.

  Back on the rafts the next day it was markedly warmer. There was a section of faster water, which Finn enjoyed, then the river entered a high-walled, precipitous grey canyon. The current calmed, seemingly as awed by the scenery as the humans.

  Bighorn sheep picked their way across the cliff sides and great birds circled. Still they saw no people. They’d seen no other living human beings since Eagle’s Bluff, half a moon before and east of the Shining Mountains. Were there any people left this far west, Finn wondered. And what had happened to everyone who’d lived in the villages they’d passed?

  On they floated. Yoki Choppa taught Freydis combinations of herbs to use in the alchemical bowl. Finn listened for a while, but it was mind-fryingly dull, so he went back to watching the world go by.

  The grey rock valley sides gave way to steeper and redder canyons, which closed in claustrophobically on the churning brown river, then opened again to an increasingly weird red rock landscape sparsely decorated with strange plants.

  The river became bucking rapids, then calmed, then accelerated again. There was the odd shoal where they had to step into cool water and heave the rafts along, but generally the going was easy. Every now and then Finn thought he saw something spying from crags, but whatever it was darted away before he could be sure. He tried to reach out to nearby animals with his mind, but found nothing. His ability to communicate with creatures seemed to have waned since his battle with the squatch.

  “Mine comes and goes, too,” said Erik on a broad stretch where the rafts floated along together. “I try not to worry about it.”

  Sitsi told Finn that the stark red rock was the typical landscape in the Desert You Don’t Walk Out Of and that there’d be a lot more of it to come.