Terraless

by Thorby Rudbek

  Athanashal and Gefforen leaned back, working the rope with renewed vigour – Eshezy could see the understanding in the youth’s startling, icy-blue eyes, contrasting with the confusion in Gefforen’s deep, placid-blue ones.

  Harthangan was half-way up the bank now.

  Still… close! Eshezy crouched, ready to leap from her precarious, semi-permeable perch to the beckoning bank. The dead air in the gully started to move past her. She looked right. A trickle of water appeared, moving down towards her, sinking into the mud as it approached. The trickle became many, they merged, rose… A rush of water, as from thirty fire hoses, drowned the trickles and came towards her, knocking her off the raft and into the rising flood.

  She went under.

  The rope slipped through her right hand – instant blisters – she hung on, managing to stop the movement, though the persistent pain pestered her to unclasp. Something crashed briefly against her, bruising ribs, hard soil thumped against her – or was it she, thumping against it? – making her tumble. Her left arm twisted, something in her hand caused a twinge – no, a jab like a bolt of lightning – up that arm. Further tumbling. She spluttered as her head came up above the water; the rope was tangled around her waist and also her ankle. She still had a hold on it, too, as the water rushed around her, pulling her downstream.

  “Pass me the bow!”

  She looked up, disoriented, to see Gefforen above her, then the water splashed over her again, and she coughed. I still have it! She realised the pain in her left arm was due to the tumbling; the bow had stuck briefly into the bank, stopping her downstream motion. “Here!”

  Gefforen took the weapon and Athanashal stuck his hand out, leaning over the fast-moving flow. Eshezy got hold of it with both of hers and waited as he leaned back to take the strain of the pressure of the water. She pulled as he did and rocketed out onto the shore, falling onto the thick golf-grass in relief.

  Harthangan! No! She remembered his peril, pushed up from the well-cropped lawn and looked across the water. No Harthangan. Her gaze shifted along the bank, following the flow. An arm flashed in the light, the water glistening as it emerged. A moment later and the man followed, mud-free now as he collapsed onto the bank some forty yards downstream. On the other side.

  Chapter Eleven

  Across the River Beinkanap

  “Gefforen!” Eshezy sat up, feeling battered, soaked, twisted and …. exhilarated. She looked at the very muddy Athanashal, standing a bare two feet away, leaning over towards her, beside her younger friend. Where is Carranavak? She leaned to look behind them and saw the prisoner some ten yards back along the shore, sitting and staring at the raging river before him, where moments earlier there had been a yawning, superficially inert gully. He seems tame enough… perhaps that demonstration of the power of ‘She’ knocked some of the stuffing out of him. Let’s just make sure he doesn’t make an unexpected recovery. She called to him, stating his name flatly, emphatically, as the shackles ‘grew back’ around him, pulling his hands up from the marvellous grass and together in front of his mud-encased jerkin.

  The river flowed swiftly on, swirls and bubbles, leaves and tree fragments all rushing past, flotsam and jetsam thrust miles downstream to who-knows-where – perhaps even the far-distant ocean itself. As would we, if we had not been warned. The level was just inches below the top of the banks, looking for all the world as if it had always been so. Where did all those little creatures go? How did they know? She realised immediately that another aspect of ‘She’ had been demonstrated – Her care for the smallest creatures in her world.

  Eshezy stood up, dripping, and winced as she found out how badly her left arm had been wrenched. “Athanashal, Gefforen, you were magnificent!”

  “Harthangan!” She turned back to look across the vast expanse of fast-moving water.

  The ex-miner was standing now, too, his mud coat had been stripped away and he looked unharmed by his experience. He walked back up the bank to the point opposite them, watching dozens of broken branches rushing past in the frantic flow. “I can’t get over!” He called out, frankly and humbly.

  “It’s okay.” Eshezy called back reassuringly, the situation suddenly clear as she remembered how strangely low the waters had seemed to her when she had crossed over to Neechaall. “This is all part of the plan. They won’t be able to cross either, and I expect – no, more than ‘expect’ – I know that the River Venkanikam is just as impressive now. Go tell Travakane, Basrillene and the others that ‘She’ has created a huge island of safety around our Fortress, at least until they can figure out how to build a bridge!”

  Harthangan shook his head, looking down in disappointment, for he had refocused his life on providing protection to Eshezy and now his dream, with the deeper implications that he had not yet figured out, was dead… in the water.

  “Oh.” Gefforen looked at the rope, still partly on the shore beside her, the rest being plastered against the bank by the flow. “He has our supplies!”

  Eshezy felt the leathern bag hanging at her right side, relieved to find it still full, but the one on the left was flat, empty, drained. She looked and found that her companions had not suffered any losses in this area. “At least we still have our water – except this one, that is.”

  “It is such a long way over…” Gefforen was wondering how they would get back. Perhaps we’ll come some other way.

  “Just how far is it? – do you think he could throw some things over?” Athanashal was looking at the river, trying to judge the width. He looked at Eshezy, considering his estimate before uttering it. “Forty-five yards.” He picked up the rope and started to haul it out of the fast-flowing waters.

  Eshezy nodded in agreement. “I think that’s about it. If I had some long string, I might be able to fire over an arrow with a long tail.” She picked up her bow and checked the ends, cleaning off the mud and flexing it to check it had not been damaged. She pulled out an arrow and found that, far from being coated with mud, it was not even wet.

  “Then he could pull over the rope with it.” Athanashal got the idea immediately, as she expected. “If we had time we could take a strand out of this rope, but we’d have to unravel all of it and then re-weave it. We’d be here for hours.”

  Eshezy looked at Harthangan, noting he was watching them, clearly reluctant to leave before they finished their conversation – though he could hear none of it. He reached down and started rummaging in one of the bags. A moment later and he was throwing an apple over, which Athanashal caught easily. A few more apples followed, each being intercepted by the adept lad.

  “Do you think you could throw some of the heavier things over?” She called out the earlier question that Athanashal had posed.

  “I’ll measure out a similar length on the bank and see how far I can throw the bigger stuff.” Harthangan paced out a length which seemed about right. Then he opened one of the shoulder bags lying on the bank and brought out a pottery cooking vessel.

  “If you throw that, it will probably break when it hits the ground.” Athanashal called out hastily.

  Harthangan raised both hands above his head and shrugged his shoulders. “The flour bags are about the same weight. I’ll try one of those.” No one objected, so he fished out the large sack and swung it around to get the feel. Then he swung it around twice and launched it upwards and along the bank.

  Eshezy turned to Carranavak. “If you want to get some of that mud off, you’d better try now. I don’t know when we’ll see another river.” More to the point, that mud doesn’t smell very nice! She saw him grimace but walk to the edge of the bank and sit down, dipping each leg in turn into the fast waters. She released the shackles and watched as he reached in first one arm, then the other and started splashing water onto his muddy clothes. Gefforen moved a few yards upstream and dipped her feet in, one at a time, watching as the mud washed away from her soft boots and leggings. As soon as she was finished, Athanashal started to clean up, also.

  Some time had
passed – the farsighted one, the close-staying one, the vaunted visionary and the perilous prisoner all looked fairly clean at last, though very wet, and the throw-practice on the far side seemed to have reached an end, too.

  “Here it comes.” Harthangan swung the bag twice; it flew up and seemed to hang for moment before dropping into the water a few feet from the shore and sinking without a splash. “Sorry! I’ll try the other one.” This time he swung the bag around three times and it flew up noticeably higher before falling on the bank a few feet from the edge. However, it split on contact and some flour spilled. Gefforen quickly knelt to sew it up, determined that not much would be lost.

  “I’m going to try the pot.” Harthangan shouted, pleased with his success. “See if you can catch it!”

  Athanashal got ready, excited by the challenge. The pot flew up like the bag, dropped towards the quick-witted youth who caught it easily, though he was nursing his fingers for a while afterwards.

  “I’m going to go back now. I put a part empty water bag in the pot for you, Eshezy!” Harthangan called, picking up the second length of rope and the almost empty shoulder bags. “There’s nothing else that I can throw and at least you have some food – but now I don’t have any!”

  “Thanks! Pick some more apples to take back, then they’ll be happy to see you! And find out if the watchers can see us from the tower.” Eshezy waved, confident they were still on track, though the track was known only to ‘She’. “We’ll be on an upslope for a while after we’ve eaten, so we should come back into view by the time you get back to the Fortress.”

  Harthangan picked up the bags, waved and walked up the path. In a moment he had turned the curve of the tenuous track, walked into the apple grove and was gone.

  ***

  After a quick meal of baked/grilled flour biscuits and (fresh) apples prepared adeptly by Gefforen, Eshezy urged them upwards, concerned about the still-decreasing illumination from the sun-creature. The others had noticed, too, and looks passed between them as they took in the movements of the many-tentacled creature which seemed to be keeping pace with them. They left the valley of the new river and re-entered the grass-filled plain above it, Carranavak no longer pretending to be weary.

  Athanashal, who had been thinking about the events of the past few days, reflected that the rejuvenating effect of the well water would have been enough to energise this principal soldier. He concluded that it had probably also given Punamekin the unexpected strength which had led to the death of Beinkanap and then his own, final demise.

  “Eshezy, I think I know what we should name this new river.” He called over the prisoner’s head as she led the way into the grasses.

  “Tell me.” She paused and looked over her shoulder.

  “It should be the Beinkanap River.”

  She nodded, looking at Carranavak, keeping a straight face. “Unless of course Seirchaal already named it.” She watched his expression, anticipating some scornful comment and she was not disappointed.

  “You were just lucky back there. He almost got you and Harthangan – it would have been two for the price of one!”

  “And now that that attempt failed, he has left the water in place, conveniently for us blocking all access by his soldiers to my Fortress.” She grinned, twisting his version of the events some more. “With a leader like that, no wonder you scowl so much! Remind me to thank him, if I ever meet him.”

  Carranavak merely growled. I have watched him kill. He is all-powerful and merciless… you will die! I live for that moment!

  Eshezy moved on into the grass and Gefforen settled in beside her as Athanashal prodded the ‘governor’ to maintain a suitable following distance. They walked until they were half way to the next progress point – which in this, as all other instances, would be the next meal. Then Eshezy stopped, looking at something in the grasses at her feet. “Athanashal!”

  He came up and bent down to see what she was pointing at. A paw print – almost four inches across – was preserved in the slightly damp soil between the clumps of grasses. Both of them looked in the direction that the animal had been walking, trying to spot some further sign of this large beast, but without success.

  Some thirty-five yards away, screened by the thick grasses, a large, thick-furred but fairly short-haired creature with sandy colouring, his head a full yard above the ground, the tip of his tail almost three yards behind his whiskered nose, stalked silently on his well-padded feet through the patchy undergrowth, his attention on the sound he had just detected.

  “Do you know many of the animals? The ones that are dangerous, not the little ones, like at the River. This looks familiar to me…”

  “He’s gone!” Gefforen shrieked, before the far-sighted youth could answer.

  “It’s okay.” Eshezy grabbed her disciple’s shoulder as she looked towards the sound of breaking grass stalks – the direction of Carranavak’s stampede-like escape. “There’s a reception party waiting for him; he’ll be back soon!” The revelation came with the usual off-balance effects, but she barely noticed them now, she was so comfortable with the knowledge she received. I’d better release his bonds, or he won’t make it back!

  Athanashal reported on the impression in the soft soil, clearly confident in her prediction, though the sounds of the prisoner’s departure had now faded entirely away. “Yes, it is one of the most dangerous ones; it can jump right over the tallest person and come down yards and yards away, or so I’ve been told. Few people have seen them – mostly the miners have talked of them. They look a bit like Rauffaely from what I heard, but ten times as big at least. They’ve been seen eating some of the other creatures in the forest, and the plains.”

  Ah! Eshezy grinned. I remember these creatures from ‘before’. I remember how to handle them, at least, how to handle them ‘back there’. Perhaps the name will come to me. “Let’s get ready – stand up and be ready to wave your arms about when Carranavak comes running, or the creature will catch him.”

  “Perhaps that would be best.” Athanashal murmured.

  Eshezy decided not to respond. I’m not sure I know what he means, anyway. Though, despite the ambiguity of his words, she really did.

  Shrieks and wails sounded from within the grassy surroundings and the sound of breaking grass stalks and pounding feet could be perceived and quickly grew louder again. Gefforen stepped unconsciously behind Eshezy. A moment later and the repentant escapee broke through the wall of grass, his face a mask of terror.

  Eshezy twisted her right hand gently before her, at about waist height. The leather shackles reappeared, though this time they wrapped around his wrists and looped down to his ankles, tripping him so that he fell face first at their feet.

  “Run!” He screamed as he twisted around to see his doom. “It will kill us all!”

  The others looked with interest as a low growl and a rustle heralded the arrival of … Rauffaely. His tail was puffed thicker than Eshezy had ever seen or thought possible and his mouth was wide open as he added a wail almost the same as the previous ones and ended, anticlimactically, with a trademark meow.

  Gefforen laughed and dropped down to greet him and he favoured her with a further meow directed precisely towards her as he sat down. In a moment he had started washing his face, looking completely relaxed.

  “Rauffaely!” Eshezy ignored Carranavak’s pleas and crouched on one knee, which her favourite feline immediately bounced off, taking his traditional position on her shoulder where he continued washing, his tail settling to its usual sleekness. She stood back up and enjoyed the smiles on her friends’ faces as they relaxed. ‘Let’s move on. We haven’t really been delayed much at all and I’m sure this won’t happen again.” A glance at the ex-governor showed his anger was boiling up to replace the initial embarrassment. “Next time there may not be any ‘Rauffaelian’ intervention, and you will find out how right you were. Personally.”

  As Gefforen got up, her attention on the now-unruffled Rauffaely, Athanashal studied
the area from which both the cat and the prisoner had returned, wondering what had really diverted the far larger animal he had predicted. Surely not this little cat!

  “Get up.” Eshezy waved dismissively at the shaken and shamed prisoner, releasing enough of the shackles for him to be able to do so.

  Athanashal arose from his crouch by the paw print and waited a moment for Carranavak to follow Eshezy’s directive. The peace of the mid-‘afternoon’ settled over them again. Eshezy moved on ahead, putting a few feet between her and the others. She looked left and nodded slightly as she caught a glimpse of the cougar, watching her, almost invisible against the grasses, a bare ten feet to her left. He bared his fangs briefly, but remained silent as he slunk silently away and the others remained unaware. Rauffaely’s ears tweaked at a sound only he could hear, but he did not deign to acknowledge his larger cousin, content in the present once more with his human companion.