by Angus Watson
Somehow, she had to get the girl.
Paloma ran along, racking her mind. She could strap on her water shoes, run along the front of the wave, grab Freydis and run on to the other side. That would mean running much faster than she’d run before in water shoes; much faster, in fact, then the time ever a bit faster than normal and the shoes had fallen apart and she’d sunk. If it was just her, maybe she’d have risked it, but if shoes broke up once she’d grabbed Freydis they’d both drown.
She could get a long way ahead of the wave, make a very long rope, tie it round her waist, tie one end around a tree, put on her water shoes, run up the river, grab Freydis, hold on as the flood washed over them and… That was an even worse idea. For starters it would take her three days to make a rope long enough.
Freydis was shouting something. Paloma held a hand to her ear.
“Don’t try to get me!” she shouted. “I’m okay!”
Paloma watched for a while. Freydis wasn’t just lying on the raft, she was shifting her weight about to counter the rolls and swells in the wave face. Her movements were calm but deliberate and effective, as if she’d been riding rafts on the business end of flash floods all her life.
“Are you sure?” Paloma shouted.
“You’ll drown if you try to get me and I’m okay. I’m enjoying it!”
“Can you get to the bank?”
“No! I’ve got to go where the wave wants me to go. Here, watch this!”
Freydis pivoted her body towards Paloma. The raft sliced lower on the face of the wave, towards the bank. However, a bulge of water pushed the craft back into the middle.
“See?” Freydis shouted.
“I do!”
“Can you run along and wait until it calms, and I’ll get myself over to your bank? If you can’t keep up, then I’ll walk upstream along the bank until I find you?”
“I can keep up.”
“Oh good. Thanks very much for coming after me!”
“Any time!” A safe commitment, thought Paloma. The situation was unlikely to recur. “Are you sure you’re okay? It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Oh, yes, it’s really fun. It’s a shame you’re not out here too! Do be careful running along through the dark. This could take a long time! Sorry!”
Chapter 9
The Search for Squatch
“Pole a mole.” Sassa Lipchewer stood on the edge of the cliff, morning breeze ruffling her blonde crest of hair.
Immediately in front of her the land dropped hundreds of feet, then shot up again in great towers of red rock. The towers ranged from mountainous mesas to stocky needles. Many of their summits glowed red in the dawn sun like the tips of recently extinguished torches.
At her feet were scuff marks made by the squatch where he’d clambered over the top of the cliff.
The others were preparing to head off. The squatch tracks led south-east along a red soil path between tiny green trees.
There was only one set of footprints.
“The squatch must be carrying Ottar,” said Wulf.
Or he dropped him on the way up the cliff, thought Sassa, or ate him.
Sofi led them through the alien landscape. There were two types of gnarled trees, some with blue berries and others with small brown cones–“juniper trees and pinyon pines!” announced Sitsi–and a whole range of little bushes, grasses and cactuses and weird plants that Sassa had never seen before, including spiky balls with a single long, naked twig poking up like a freaky reverse root. All the vegetation was widely spaced out in the red sand, as if it had been planted for display.
Presently a rabbit hopped out from the roots of a pinyon pine. It looked at Sassa, didn’t seem to think much of her and set about munching a plant. More and more of the furry little animals bounded from cover until there were rabbits everywhere, skittering across bare rock, nibbling at shoots or scratching their faces with hind legs.
“If I’m reincarnated as a rabbit,” said Erik, “I’m coming here.”
“Me too,” said Chogolisa. “If I’m reincarnated as a coyote.”
Sassa could feel the sun baking her shell-shaved head either side of the crest of hair. It wasn’t perhaps the best hairstyle for desert sun. She was thinking about hats and searching unsuccessfully for broad-leaved plants when Sofi halted and turned with a finger to her lips.
“What does…” started Bodil.
“Shush.” Thyri grabbed Bodil’s arm and pressed her finger against the woman’s lips. Bodil looked startled, but she got the message.
Sofi nodded at Yoki Choppa.
The warlock mulled herbs and presumably a lock of Ottar’s hair in his alchemical bowl. As he worked, Sassa watched a comically fat mouse munch seeds under a nearby tree. There was much more life than she’d expected to find in the desert. Or maybe they just saw more animals because there was no undergrowth to hide in? And the animals were furrier than she’d thought they would be. The fat mouse looked like it would overheat in an instant in that fur coat. Or maybe all that hair was useful for keeping the sun off its skin…
The warlock set fire to his mix, sniffed the smoke and looked to the south-east.
“A mile, that way,” he said. “Alive.”
Sassa almost fell over with relief. It felt like she’d been holding her breath for an hour without realising and had just let it out.
“Don’t get too excited,” said Sofi. “He’s still the captive of at least one squatch.”
They followed the tracks along a dry, flat-bottomed valley filled with more weird, lush and sparse plants. The valley sides were steep red rock. A moon ago Sassa would have said those valley sides were high cliffs. Now she wouldn’t even call them cliffs.
Rising from the land ahead was a short promontory crowned by a cluster of red rock towers that reached skyward like the fingers of a giant’s hand. It looked like a god’s stronghold.
Sofi gestured for them to stop, then crouched and beckoned for everyone to gather.
“Ottar and the squatch are in there. There’s only one squatch.” She pointed up at the great hand of rock. “I think both are asleep. Finn the Deep, Thyri Treelegs and Sassa Lipchewer come with me. The rest of you stay here and gather rocks.”
“What size rocks?” asked Erik.
“Hurling at a squatch before it gets in mind-crush range sized rocks.”
“Got you,” Erik nodded.
Sassa looked at Wulf. He smiled reassuringly.
“Come on,” said Sofi.
Chapter 10
Rage
Paloma Pronghorn jogged along, trying to keep pace with the meltwater surge that propelled Freydis the Annoying westward through the night. It wasn’t the speed that hampered her–of course it wasn’t–it was the tributaries, cliffs and other annoyances. She spent more time finding her way back to the head of the flood than running alongside it. It didn’t help that it was a particularly dark night, nor that she couldn’t stop thinking about Freydis. The poor little girl! Trapped on a rushing cascade that could flip her raft and drown her at any moment.
Paloma felt impotent, which was very unusual for her, and, even odder, she was sick with worry. The last time she’d worried like this about someone else was… well, it had been a while.
She ran around spindly bushes, leapt yucca and dodged cactuses. She pounded across rock and powered through sand. Coyotes and other night beasts fled as she passed. Owls and giant moths burst out of the darkness and flapped clear, as startled by her as she was by them.
Normally she’d have loved the run through the new desert environment; the clacking of stones tumbling behind her as she ran up scree slopes, the steady susurration of soft, strength-sapping sand, the grippy rocks that she bounded across like a young bighorn.
But she was too worried about Freydis, racked by the guilt that she could and should be doing more to help. But the girl had insisted that she was fine. Trapped on the raft in the middle of the raging river, but fine.
The child’s bravery made the situation a
ll the more poignant. Whenever Paloma returned to the river, she knew that Freydis was still afloat because she could hear shrill singing over the churning water and clonking flotsam.
As the night morphed from blue-black to blue-grey, and she could see that the rushing flood had slowed, Paloma began to get an inkling that Freydis wasn’t in quite as much trouble as she’d made out. She was manoeuvring the raft to avoid islands, logs and other debris, so why not manoeuvre to the bank? Thinking about it, hit by a flash flood, surely it would be impossible not to be driven onto the bank, and pretty quickly, too.
In fact, it would be difficult to stay in the centre of the river.
Dawn came, Paloma could see the expression on Freydis’s face and she knew. The girl was taking the piss.
The head of the flood had reduced from a roaring white-water monster to a big ripple, barely large enough to carry the raft. And there was Freydis riding the raft in the middle of it, leaning one way and then the other, soaring left and right like a gliding bird. She wasn’t trying to avoid debris and keep herself alive. She was manoeuvring to keep the craft on the face of the wave. It would have been easier to steer the raft ashore.
Freydis had made Paloma run and worry all night. She’d left the others fretting, even grieving. And all so that she could enjoy herself riding a wave.
Paloma felt pressure growing in her ears.
“Get over here NOW, Freydis the Annoying!” she shouted, surprised by the violence in her voice.
“I can’t!” Freydis cheerily called.
Paloma seethed. They must have come a hundred miles in the night, maybe more. How was she going to get the girl back to the others? She could tow Sofi along, but Sofi was alchemically strengthened. She’d surely break Freydis’s arms if she tried to pull her at any speed.
“You will come here right now or I will drag you ashore and spank the skin off your arse!” she raged.
Freydis’s eyes shot wide and her mouth opened. She leant to her left to bring the raft over to Paloma.
Paloma kept pace, shaking with anger, ready to wrench the girl off the raft by the scruff of her neck and spank her.
The raft crunched to rest on a shingle shoal.
Freydis, lying on it, looked up. Her eyes were red and she was crying a little.
Paloma slumped. The girl was tiny and spindly limbed. She was shivering after her night on the river. She was six years old. And Paloma had been about to hit her.
Wow, thought the warrior. Now she was calm, her rage seemed amazing, disproportionate, something she’d never felt before.
“Are you going to spank me?” Freydis asked.
“I should. What were you thinking? Why didn’t you come to the bank?”
“I was stuck out there,” she lied.
“No, you weren’t!” Paloma felt the rage rising again. Freydis didn’t care. The girl might be small but she’d been a selfish dick. “You could have come to the bank right at the start! Couldn’t you?” she was shouting. “I ran all night!” As she yelled it, she realised how ridiculous it sounded. She liked running all night.
Freydis stared back at her, wide-eyed.
“Couldn’t you?!”
Still no answer.
“What about Ottar? Do you have any idea how upset he is right now? Do you know how much hurt you’ve caused? You were having fun and that was all that mattered to you! Fuck everyone else!”
Freydis covered her head with her hands and sobbed.
“I’ve never had fun before,” she managed through her sobs. “And I might never get the chance again.”
Paloma took a deep breath and looked up. The sun was blazing out from behind a bluff, but it hadn’t hit their section of the bank yet.
The girl had enjoyed herself without considering the impact on others. It was an attitude that pretty much summed up Paloma’s life.
She sighed.
There was a pile of dry, dead wood further up the bank, left by a previous, higher flood.
There’s always a bigger flood, thought Paloma.
“All right, stop crying. I’m sorry,” she said. “Let’s build a fire, have some food and you can sleep for a while. Then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do. Sorry I got so angry.”
The girl did stop crying, miraculously quickly. “Don’t worry. We all get angry sometimes, Paloma Pronghorn,” said the six-year-old. “And don’t worry about Ottar. He knows I’m okay.”
“How?”
“He does. Come on, that fire’s not going to build itself.”
Freydis skipped up the shingle bank towards the wood. Why, Paloma wondered, did it suddenly feel like the girl was in charge?
Next to the Red River, a good way upstream, Sitsi Kestrel stood with the warm sun on her back, shifting from foot to foot and wondering whether to wake Keef the Berserker.
On the one hand they ought to get going. Sitsi had found Paloma’s tracks heading westward, but no sign of the runner coming back east. It was unlikely that she’d taken a different return route. Paloma was savvy enough to realise that she’d been gone longer than excepted, so someone might have been sent to follow her, so she should take the same path back. She was also wilful and selfish enough to ignore that knowledge and take a different route if it suited her even a little, but Sitsi was hoping her Owsla mate would behave decently for once when a dead child and her grieving tribe mates were concerned.
Maybe not dead.
Sitsi was desperate to catch up and find out what had happened, but the river’s current was slowing every moment. Every heartbeat they dawdled here would add two to their journey. Or maybe a heartbeat and a half, decreasing to a heartbeat and a quarter the longer they… they had to get going, that was the point.
On the other hand, Keef might be offended if she woke him. Some tribes had strange ideas about manliness and what women could tell men to do. She didn’t think the Wootah were like that, but she’d never been in a situation like this with them.
Screw what the Wootah might think, said a voice in her mind that sounded a lot like Sofi Tornado, you’re Owsla!
“Wake up, Keef!” Sitsi shouted.
Keef leapt to his feet, Arse Splitter in his hands. He jumped a full circle and landed facing Sitsi, the long axe’s spear-like tip pointing at her bare midriff.
“I’m sorry,” he said calmly, lowering the weapon. “I meant to stay on watch while you slept.”
“That’s okay. I’ve made breakfast.”
“Good. Thanks. We’ll eat as we paddle.” He lifted a hand above his head, sniffed his armpit and grimaced. “Pwarr! Not good. I’ll take a dunk in the river before we go. Do you need one?”
“I think I’m all right,” said Sitsi.
He looked at her, expecting, she guessed, that she would smell her armpit, too. She held his gaze and left her arms by her sides.
He shrugged as if to say “suit yourself” and began to undress. Sitsi went to gather their kit and breakfast. She turned to watch him run into the river. His body was white as a warlock painted for a ceremony, but he was lean-waisted, broad-shouldered and well-muscled. He had the sort of figure Sitsi liked.
Keef dressed and they set off. Sitsi paddled in front, scanning the banks. They ate the rabbit that Sitsi had cooked and the tender young rush stems she’d picked. The sun throbbed off red rocks, baking the air. She couldn’t stop yawning, for real this time. Paddling all night and worrying about Freydis had taken more out of her that she’d thought.
“Have a sleep,” said Keef.
“No. I’ve got to keep an eye out for Freydis.”
“I’ve got an eye, and it’s Paloma we need to watch out for.” He didn’t need to add that she’d be carrying Freydis’s body back along the bank. They were both thinking it now.
“Paloma’s not the most observant. She might run by.”
“I’ll sing, then she can’t miss us.”
“I’ll never sleep sitting up, especially with you singing.”
“So lie back. And my singing could lull a
livid lion.”
She really was very tired. Keef straightened his legs and she lay between them, her head on his warm and solid thigh.
Keef sang a song about a man called Rig having a three-night-long threesome with a couple called Ai and Edda. The song went into the most lascivious–frankly disgusting–detail, but Keef managed to make the words sound heroic and comic and Sitsi loved it.
As he sang, in far, far too much detail, about the birth of Edda’s son, she finally fell asleep.
Chapter 11
Ottar and the Squatch
Finn the Deep crept along after Sofi Tornado and Sassa Lipchewer. Thyri Treelegs padded behind him, quiet as a cat on the red sand that passed for soil in this freaky landscape of stupidly small trees, aggressively spikey plants, crazily red bluffs and astonishing numbers of rabbits.
He was no longer the Finnbogi the Boggy. There were serious matters at hand. There was a child to rescue and Finn the Deep was capable enough to be chosen as one of this skilful squad. Sofi hadn’t chosen Wulf the Fat. Erik the Angry wasn’t with them. Even Sofi’s own Chogolisa Earthquake had been left behind. It was Finn the Deep time.
Finnbogi the Boggy would have taken no small measure of lecherous delight to be on his own with a trio of seriously hot women. Finn the Deep was not like that. He’d certainly never fantasise about the three women stopping, rubbing scented oil on each other and telling him that this had all been a ruse to get him on his own and…
No. He was Deep. He was not Boggy.
He focused on listening for the squatch’s mind. He thought he’d found it, but it turned out to be a bighorn sheep pissed off because humans were walking where it wanted to walk. Finn was glad when he realised it wasn’t the squatch; that bighorn was one seriously angry animal. He tried to tell it to get some perspective. They were delaying it only a couple of heartbeats, after all. It told him, he was fairly certain, to lower himself arse-first onto a barrel cactus.
