An Alex Hawk Time Travel Adventure (Book 2): Lost In Kragdon-Ah

by Inmon, Shawn

  “It’s taken us almost a year to get to this point, and I’ve been so focused on getting here that I don’t really know what’s next. Can we just hop off the ship in Lasta-ah and say, ‘We caught you, now give us the girl?”

  “I don’t think that is your plan.”

  “No, it isn’t, but I don’t have any ideas that are much better right now.”

  “I remember just before we attacked Denta-ah. We had trained for months. We spent weeks putting together a battle plan. And then, on the field in front of the barricade, you had doubts. It’s natural. I trust your ability to make the right decision in the moment. If I didn’t, I never would have agreed to come with you.”

  “It’s not because of my good looks and sex appeal?”

  “You look good for a man with stunted growth, but no, that would not have been enough.”

  Alex smiled to himself. So she thinks I look good for a man that is a runt. Huh. He laid down on his blanket and drifted off almost immediately, thinking much more pleasant thoughts.

  Just a few hours later, he awoke and laid silent and still, eyes closed, as he always did. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Werda-ak sitting on his haunches, staring toward the city.

  “Gunta,” Alex said.

  “Gunta, Manta-ak.”

  “Yes, gunta, gunta,” Senta-eh said sleepily, which made both of them laugh a little.

  Within minutes they had gone into the woods to relieve themselves, filled their water bags at the small stream and made a carry pack out of their blankets—the only thing they had left now of the gifts they had received from the villages in the trees and the island. Those gifts had gotten them to this point, though, and that was what mattered.

  After riding so many miles in the preceding months, it felt good to them to stretch their legs out and walk back to the city. They hit the gates before the first light of dawn, but there were still guards there. It was a different man than had been there when they entered the city yesterday, but he gave them the same spiel.

  As most pilgrims did when they entered the city, Alex waved a hand at him and walked through.

  They walked straight to the pier where the sailing ship waited. There was already a buzz of activity there, even though it wasn’t light yet. People walked up the gangplank carrying packs, men grunted under heavy barrels on their shoulders and others pushed a cart up the precarious ramp.

  They got in line and walked up the ramp. The men carrying their heavy burdens turned left and started offloading their burdens to more men below the water line. The people who carried what looked like primitive luggage turned right. Alex followed them.

  The man they had negotiated with the day before stood at a door that led to the inside of the ship, directing traffic. “Third door on the left for you, second on the right for you.” When Alex and company reached him, he said, “Where are you going?”

  “To wherever our rooms are.”

  “You don’t have rooms.”

  Alex closed his eyes and counted to three.

  “If you had wanted a room, you should have negotiated for it. There’s a space in the back of the ship where you can stay. Make sure to stay above deck. I don’t want you messing around with the cargo.”

  Alex felt embarrassed at being outsmarted by the man again, but it was a feeling he was becoming accustomed to. He shouldered his pack and said, “Let’s just go to the back.”

  They walked along a narrow corridor at the edge of the ship until they reached the back of the ship. There were already several other people marking out space for themselves. And, there were animals—three milk beasts and half a dozen horses. The areas farthest away from the animals had already been claimed.

  Alex lifted a hand at one small family and said, “Gunta.”

  “Gunta,” the man and woman said together. “All the good places are gone.”

  Just then, one of the milk beasts plopped an enormous cow pie onto the deck near to one of the last unclaimed spots.

  “We negotiated with the captain to board last night,” the woman said helpfully.

  Alex smiled, but it was not sincere.

  “There’s a shovel over there,” the man said, pointing. “If you don’t want to sit and sleep in shit, you’ll want to use it.”

  This might have been a final straw, the last indignity, but instead Senta-eh burst out laughing at their predicament. Werda-ak joined in immediately. It took Alex longer to see the humor of the situation, but eventually, he managed a chuckle.

  He grabbed the shovel and made quite a show of scooping up the steaming green pie and tossing it overboard.

  When they sat down as far from the plop zone as they could, Alex said, “At least no one is trying to kill us.”

  Werda ak said, “Wait. Did you remember to negotiate for that? Or will the ship provide assassination attempts for free?”

  The sky grew light to their left and purple clouds shot overhead. It was a beautiful dawn, at least if you weren’t about to get crapped on by an enormous milk beast.

  The ship departed right on schedule. Alex closed his eyes and listened to the captain shouting orders to raise the sails and lift the anchor. Soon, they headed away from land until all that could be seen on all sides was Okrent-ah.

  Werda-ak took pity on Alex and took over at least half the shovel duty. They were quick to toss the pies overboard, but somehow the smell still lingered. That earthy odor, combined with the tossing of the boat, made Senta-eh green. She was never talkative, but she had gone dead silent.

  After a few hours, a woman appeared with a tray of food. It wasn’t fancy, but it looked hearty—several bowls of stew, some hard-crusted bread, and a small slab of cheese. She delivered all of that to the waiting families, then disappeared back to the kitchen.

  Alex leaned over and said, “At least I remembered to negotiate for this thing. That stew looks good.”

  A minute later, the woman reappeared with another tray. This one had much smaller bowls and was filled, not with stew, but with a pasty porridge.

  Alex opened his mouth to object, but before he could get a word out, the woman said, “Captain said to tell you that if you had wanted hearty food—”

  “—I know, I know, I should have negotiated for it.”

  “Exactly,” the woman said primly. She handed the bowls to Alex and Werda-ak, but Senta-eh held up a hand to refuse it. Werda-ak said, “I’ll take it and keep it for her,” and the woman disappeared. The boy gobbled down his own portion of the tasteless mixture, then did the same with Senta-eh’s. Just then, a massive series of horse apples, fresh and aromatic, dropped a few feet away. The combination of that, seeing the food, and the tossing of the waves was too much.

  Senta-eh bolted for the side of the ship and retched and vomited for long minutes.

  Alex considered whether to go and comfort her, but Senta-eh had never been much of one for needing comfort. Instead, he gathered up the bowls and went forward. He found the woman who had brought them their food, handed her their bowls, and said, “Do you have anything for seasickness? And please, have mercy. Please don’t say I should have negotiated for that.”

  The woman gave him one pitying look, then said, “Stay here.” She disappeared below and popped back up a moment later. She handed Alex a few purple leaves. “Here, have her chew on this. It won’t help immediately, but over time, it will help her adjust.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said sincerely.

  He turned and saw the captain high above, manning a large wheel. He chucked the fingers of his right hand under his chin in the captain’s direction, knowing that no one on this planet would know what that meant.

  He hurried back to Senta-eh and handed her two of the leaves. “The woman said to chew this.”

  She reached for them, then a horrified look came over her face and she bolted once again for the side of the ship. She stayed with her head hanging over for a long time, then finally came back and chewed the leaves.

  When she made a face, Alex said, “If it ta
stes awful, it’s got to be good for you.” He waited until she had swallowed them, then produced his water bag. “Here. Try to drink a little.”

  She took a mouthful of water, rinsed it around in her mouth, then spat it in the direction of the milk beast, before swallowing a little.

  By the time darkness fell that first night, Senta-eh was feeling better, and Alex and Werda-ak were like new husbands changing a baby’s diaper when it came to cleaning up after the horses and milk beasts. Each one always thought it was the other’s turn.

  For supper, they were served the same gruel they had been that morning. They resigned themselves to the fact this was going to be the entirety of their diet for whatever time it took to make the journey.

  Sure enough, it was the same the next morning, but that evening, the same woman who had given Alex the medicine brought bowls filled with a spicy bean stew.

  “Real food? Did you run out of gruel?”

  “One of the passengers paid for your food for the rest of the voyage.”

  Alex was genuinely surprised. “Who would do that?”

  The woman didn’t answer, but just then, Versa-eh appeared from around the corner, smiling. “I couldn’t let you starve to death, not after you delivered me safely to Grinta-ah.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I knew I wasn’t going to marry the man, he was old and he smelled bad. His other wives said he beat them. No man is going to beat me. I would have killed him had he tried. I thought it was better for both of us if I left on my own.” She smiled disarmingly. “I did help myself to some of his valuables before I left. He was surprisingly trusting of someone he didn’t know. I used a small bit of the valuables to make sure you don’t have to eat that pig swill they were feeding you.”

  Alex recovered himself enough to ask, “Where are you going now?”

  “Away. Away from my father, away from Grinta-eh, just away. While I was in his home, one of his other wives said that the farther down the river you go, the better it is. That there are strange new contrivances and ideas. I liked the sound of that, so I’m going to find out.”

  “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “You’re right. But, I know my father took advantage when he traded with you. I felt like I owed you something.”

  “Not something so much as getting us a cabin,” Werda-ak noted, but he smiled as he said it.

  Versa-eh looked at the posterior of the milk beast a few feet away. “I would have, but he said the cabins were all full. Everyone wants to go south. It’s where everything exciting is happening.”

  And the people of Winten-ah remain blissfully unaware of it all, with the exception of these two.

  “If it starts to rain on you, come knock on my door and we can huddle in my little room.” She stood, wrinkled her nose, and hurried away.

  “Something tells me she doesn’t like the odor of our accommodations,” Alex said.

  “She is young and thinks that her beauty and brains will lead her to everything she wants,” Senta-eh said. “Maybe she’s right.”

  They started to take walks around the boat whenever they could. When the captain saw them, he gave them the stink-eye, but as long as they didn’t loiter too long in any one spot, he didn’t actually forbid them from moving around.

  There were perhaps fifty passengers on board, and they soon came to recognize them all. After they had been moving down the river for more than a week, Alex and Werda-ak were perched on a rail at the front of the ship, enjoying the fact that they weren’t inhaling horse dung.

  Since they had left Grinta-ah, they hadn’t seen any other sign of life—no other boats and no sign of land.

  While Alex stared out over the grayish-green water, Werda-ak turned his back on the railing, propping his elbows in it. As a young boy who had spent the first fifteen years of his life in a community of only a few hundred, he enjoyed people watching.

  Suddenly, he stiffened. Alex sensed his alarm, and without moving, said, “What?” out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Don’t be obvious, but turn and look at the man that just walked by.”

  As discreetly as possible, Alex turned and looked. He looked exactly like every other passenger on the ship, with the possible exception that he wore a long robe instead of the pants and shirt everyone else wore.

  They stood casually until the man disappeared back into the cabins. When he did, Werda-ak tugged at Alex and said, “Come on.” He hurried back to their spot by the stables and found his small pile of possessions. He rooted through it for a moment, then triumphantly lifted up a scrap of material. It was the piece of fabric that they had found on the dead soldier that Monda-ak had dug up at the very beginning of their journey.

  “That man’s robe opened slightly in the wind, and the inside of it is lined with this material. Exactly like this.”

  Alex reached out and touched it thoughtfully. “It could be a common fabric in this area.”

  “Have you seen anyone else wearing this?”

  “No,” Alex admitted. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe he is like the men in Tonton-ah. Someone they left behind to kill us.”

  Alex considered. “No. I don’t think so. It was obvious that we would pass through Tonton-ah, so it was smart to leave an assassination crew behind there. But there is no way they would know we would come to Grinta-ah and get on this particular boat.”

  For a moment, Werda-ak looked crestfallen. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought it through.”

  Alex laid a hand on his shoulder. “Be glad! If you were right, we’d have to sleep with one eye open the rest of the voyage. But, if he is from Lasta-ah, that means we are heading in the right direction. We’re on the right trail.”

  “Should we try to talk to him? See if we can get information?”

  “I don’t think so. Everything we’ve seen about them says that they are intelligent and guarded. I don’t know how, but if he tips to the idea of who we are, he might be able to get ahead of us and let them know we are coming.”

  “But, if we get a chance to casually watch him, maybe we can learn something.”

  It was a good idea, but they never got the chance.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Shipwrecked

  In the middle of that night, Alex sat awake, swaying with the rhythm of the boat. He had dissuaded Werda-ak about the possibility that the man who might be from Lasta-ah was onboard to kill them, but he didn’t believe it so thoroughly that he wanted to be careless.

  So, while the others slept, he stayed awake, shoveling when necessary, simply being alert the rest of the time. The night was quiet. They were far enough from shore that they didn’t see a lot of seabirds, so the only sound was the creaking of the ship and the sloshing of the water against the sides of the boat.

  Alex was brought out of his reverie when he heard a man’s strident voice shout, “Captain!”

  The ship traveled twenty-four hours a day, but of course the captain could not be on watch the entire time. Overnights, his first mate stood watch, steering the ship mostly by instinct, since there were no forward lights and the moon was only a tiny crescent.

  Again, the voice rang out. “Captain!” It was loud enough to carry throughout the ship, but most of the passengers were sound enough asleep that it didn’t waken them. Alex glanced to his left and saw the whites of Senta-eh’s eyes reflecting the starlight. She didn’t move, but he saw the question on her face. Gently, Alex moved Monda-ak’s head from his lap and moved to the side of the ship. There was nothing but darkness there. Then he looked directly behind them. Another ship, smaller than their own, was only a few hundred yards behind.

  Alex tried to take a measure of how far behind they were, but he didn’t have a good frame of reference. He watched them for a full minute, though, and to his eye, it looked like the trailing ship was gaining on them.

  Alex held up a hand to Senta-eh and whispered, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  The ship ti
lted sharply to the starboard side, tossing Alex away from the railing and into the wall of the narrow corridor. He stumbled, fell, and had trouble finding his footing. He looked for a handhold to help him get his balance, but there was none. He resorted to simply crawling along the deck.

  Now, everyone was awake and he could hear screams and cries coming from every corner. Beneath the decks, he felt the vibration of the cargo sliding around and slamming into walls. People who had rooms were being thrown from their cots onto the floor. The animals and people without rooms were tossed about, and bellowed incoherent words and shrieks.

  Finally the boat stopped its sharp turn and Alex was able to spring to his feet. He hurried down the corridor and ran up the ladder to the ship’s wheel two rungs at a time.

  The captain had arrived on deck, and although bleary-eyed, he was obviously in command. The first mate had slunk back against the wall, happy not to be manning the wheel.

  “What’s happening, captain?” Alex said.

  The captain glanced at him. All the game-playing he had done with Alex was gone. He was deadly serious. “They’re trying to take us.”

  Alex didn’t need to ask “Who?” It was obvious. Instead, he said, “Can they?”

  The captain didn’t answer, but instead shouted orders to reposition the sails to better catch the wind. Once again, he spun the wheel hard right. Nothing happened for several heartbeats, then the ship veered hard in that direction. Alex was ready this time, and managed to grab a railing and stay upright.

  “Do you have warriors who can defend us if it comes to it?”

  The captain glanced at Alex. “I have men who have weapons in their quarters. Warriors?” He snorted. “No. No warriors.”

  “You do now. My friends and I are warriors. We have our weapons. We will stand with you.”

  The captain looked Alex up and down. Alex could almost read his mind: Kind of puny for a warrior.

  “If they catch us, they will board us. When they do that, I will negotiate with them. As you saw, I am a good negotiator.” A small twinkle came back into the captain’s eye at the memory of besting Alex. “If I cannot negotiate with them, I appreciate your help. If you help us survive, I will make it right with you.”