Across The Lake

by Doug Kelly

  —— —— ——

  Briand changed to a more serious demeanor and provided a rational explanation as to why he believed there was little risk. “The men of the swamp would never think of attacking us. As for nomads, other clans would see those bandits coming days beforehand, and we are too far from the lake for pirates. All of that does not even matter because any attackers would have to get past the barriers and then through me.” He put his hand on Aton’s shoulder and felt him relax. Briand thought that he had gotten away with another snide remark, without actually apologizing for teasing Aton about feral cats and tauntingly imitating a cat’s meow.

  Aton pointed one of his fingers in the direction of the clan’s cemetery. “Should I carve that explanation on your grave marker?”

  Briand grumbled and quickened his pace so as not walk beside Aton. So much for the unspoken apology.

  Outside the gate, they followed the rear road for a short distance. It crossed meadows dotted with low bushes. As they went by, Aton commented about the shortness of the grass, which was still not ready for scything due to the recent dry spell in the weather. Last autumn, the harvest was bad, and this year there was barely any grass for the grazing animals. Lives teetered on the balance of nature’s fickle moods. Aton thought about the unattended, open gate once more and angrily shook his head.

  Bushes, kept deliberately cropped low, divided the pastures and surrounded all the cultivated lands. Just down the rear road, they left the wagon ruts, and following a footpath a short distance, then came to the pool where Briand had spearfished that morning. The small river, which ran through the enclosed grounds, was very shallow, but this was where it widened, and filled a depression that was deep enough for fishing. Beyond the pool, the stream curved and left the enclosure, and the barrier continued across it. This modified portion of the barrier permitted the stream to flow freely under it. It was low enough to block anyone who might attempt to enter by creeping up the bed of the river. They crossed the running water just above the pool by walking on some flat stones.

  The smooth poles of the barrier provided no traction for a cannibal’s naked foot. They rose to twice the height of a man and the tops of the poles were sharp, having been hacked to a point with an axe. The construction of the posts required a great amount manual labor, and it took a clan leader that commanded the services of a gang of workers to complete it. This particular barrier was not an extensive one, in comparison with the stockades of more prominent clans. Aton’s clan lived at the bottom of their warlord’s food chain.

  The enclosure surrounding the clan’s estate was an irregular oval shape. When building the family home, they had positioned it toward the northern and higher end of the oval. The river crossed the enclosure, entering on the north and leaving on the southern side. The enclosure was mostly pasture where they kept the cattle, which supplied the clan with milk, cheese, and butter. That pasture was also the area where they drove cattle that they intended to slaughter, in order to give them a few months of fattening. Occasionally in the same pasture, they temporarily turned out their horses, which they used for riding or for pulling the wagons.

  There were two pens within it, one beside the river and one farther down. The rear road ran almost down the center, passing both pens, and went past the barrier at the southern end, through the rear gate. At the northern extremity of the oval, the inner barrier passed within a bowshot of the house, and the enclosure’s dividing road went through the outer barrier at the Arrow Gate. From there, it went to a nearby village. Therefore, anyone approaching the clan leader’s family home had to pass the second barrier. At each barrier, there was a cottage and a guard’s room. At the leader’s home, the guards kept the watch even more carelessly in peaceful times than at the gates of the wall around the estate. Guards of the adjacent clans’ enclosures followed much the same plan, with local variations, although the barrier at the Matin home was noteworthy for the care and skill with which they had constructed it.

  Part of the duty of the guard on the roof was to keep an eye on the barriers, which he could see from his elevated position. In case there were an incursion of nomads, rival clans, or any other dangers, the guard at the barrier was supposed to close the gate, blow a horn, and display a warning flag. Upon hearing the horn or observing the flag, the guard on the roof would raise the alarm. By doing so, the guard sent a call for help to the local village, but because no attack had taken place for some years, discipline had grown slack.

  After crossing on the flat steppingstones in the stream, Briand and Aton were soon under the barrier that ran high above them and was actually as difficult to get out of as to get into. By the strict law of the clan, any person covertly leaving the barrier would render himself liable to imprisonment or the lash. Using an arrow or spear, the guards might kill any person, especially a servant or slave, who put himself into the position of a raider by attempting to enter from the outside with pole, ladder, or rope. In practice, the guards had frequently ignored this law, and did not apply it to members of the clan leader’s family.

  In front of them was another security breach. A damaged section of exterior wall stood waiting for its final repair. Although workers had removed two old logs because of rot, they had yet to harvest the replacement poles from the abundant forest. This gaping hole, covered temporally by thin planks of weak wood, bothered Aton just as much as the guards leaving the gates unattended. Rather than complain, he simply frowned and went about the business of removing enough of the loose boards to squeeze through the barrier. Briand put down the fishing tackle and boar spear and helped Aton with the chore. He was first to squeeze through. Aton handed him the tools, spears, and tackle, then followed him. In no time, they were on the outer side of the barrier.

  Part of the weekly work of the guards was to walk around the entire circumference of the barrier to see that it was in order, and to have any bushes removed that began to grow near it. As with so many other things, as time had passed, the guards became negligent, and they ignored this chore, too. Therefore, thorny shrubs and other undergrowth had begun to cover the space that should have been open, and young sapling oaks had risen from dropped acorns, a boon for the squirrels that plagued the area. Aton pointed this out to Briand, who seldom accompanied him. He was glad for the opportunity to show his cousin the stockade’s deficiencies. Briand admitted that he also had noticed neglect, but added that it really did not matter, since allied villages surrounded them.

  Originally, servants had cleared the ground all around the outside of the barrier, cutting down trees and slashing away bushes that could act as camouflage for dangerous animals and people alike. Everyone knew that boars in the area were particularly violent, especially in the presence of their offspring. If a feral hog was to bed down in these bushes with her young, it could also attract hungry cougars. The Americans had bred their pigs to attain great size and quantity of meat. They had been timid and large. When the catastrophe obliterated civilization, the pigs, like other domesticated animals, had turned feral. Because of breeding with wild boars, their progeny was the largest of wild hogs, long bodied and flat sided, much the same color as the mud in which they wallowed. They were the most dangerous of the feral pigs, due to their vast size and weight. To the farmer they were the greatest pest, destroying or damaging all kinds of crops, and digging up gardens, too. With difficulty, fencing kept them out, but if there was a weak place in the wooden framework, the strong snout of the animal was sure to enlarge it and work a path through. Because there were always so many of those large hogs near the enclosures, villages, and cultivated fields, constant care was required, because they instantly discovered openings. Hunters or farmers protecting their fields had to attack a wild boar quickly from both sides by piercing through its thick skin with the sharp tips of metal spears. They were very abundant and some reached an immense size, so large that they were almost impossible to destroy. No man would want to confront a hungry cougar or have an angry feral hog catch him near its offspring.
It was wise to carry a long spear with a sharp metal tip and just as wise to keep the bushes and other shrubbery neatly trimmed so they did not provide the wild beasts any shelter or camouflage.

  —— —— ——

  Aton’s design for his new spear was unique. A thin metal shank connected the sharp metal tip to the wooden shaft. Although designed for battle, specifically to disable a man with a shield, he thought it would also work perfectly well against the thick hide of a wild boar. The metal foreshaft was vital to the function of the new spear. It could fit over and be attached to an ordinary wooden shaft. His usual boar spears were better suited as thrusting weapons, but with the addition of metal tips, the added mass and change in center of gravity would transform the thrusting weapon into something suitable as a javelin. In his design, the weapon had a hardened tip, shaped like a pyramid, but the foreshaft was made of softer metal. This softness would cause the shank to bend if it did not penetrate after direct impact against a hard shield, thus rendering the spear useless to the enemy who might throw it back, but even attenuated metal was stiff enough to pierce soft flesh and maintain its shape if the spear pierced through the shield.

  Since the pyramidal tip was wider than the rest of the shank, once it penetrated a shield, it would create a hole larger than the foreshaft, allowing the spear to move through the shield with little resistance, stabbing the enemy. The length of the shank and its depth of penetration would also make it hard to pull out of a shield even if it had failed to bend. If the bearer of the shield was charging and the improved spear penetrated it, the end of the long, heavy shaft would hit the ground, thrust the tip deeper into the enemy, and abruptly stop the charge. In the event of it striking a shield but not causing injury, the shape of the tip made it very difficult to remove. With an impaled spear, the shield now became impossible to maneuver due to the weight of the wooden shaft, and the shield bearer would very likely have to discard it, leaving the enemy vulnerable at a critical moment.

  —— —— ——

  There was a distinct track of footsteps through the narrow band of saplings, shrubs, and other undergrowth between the barrier and the forest. Aton had made this path during his daily visits to the hidden boat that he had been constructing. The forest there consisted of a variety of trees, but the vegetation was now rising up so fast and thick, that in the height of summer it would be difficult to walk through it. The path wound around the thickets of shrubbery and dense vegetation and finally came to the river. The stream, which ran through the enclosure, turned there and went south.

  Near the pool by the stream, large round stones broke the current into eddies that had excavated deep holes and gullies where willows hung over the turbulent water, and an old hedge tree, best suited for bow wood, spread the shadow of its branches across the water. Aquatic vegetation partially hid the muddy bank on the farther and shallower side. Briand, after getting his tackle in order, began fishing after he skewered a grub with the hook that his cousin had made from bone. Aton, after hanging his jacket on a branch and leaning his spear against a tree, took his metal tools from the reed basket.

  Months ago, Aton had found a large cypress tree on the bank, having already decided that he was going to build a boat. This tree was the largest and straightest of its kind for some distance. He chose cypress for the boat because the wood was resistant to rot. To chop down so large a tree was very labor intensive for Aton because their axes were poor quality, cut badly, and required frequent sharpening. Good metal was hard to come by, and when they salvaged it from carcasses of old American machines, they reserved it for implements of war, such as knives, swords, spear tips, and arrowheads. He could easily have ordered servants or slaves to chop it down, and they would have obeyed immediately, but then, he would have no pride of ownership. Because he understood the task and because of his motivation for secrecy, he had chopped it down himself, therefore increasing its importance and value to him. The tree had been down many weeks in order for it to have time to dry before he split it into planks.

  He had begun this project before the first hint of springtime. Now the flowers of warmer weather scented the air, the forest was green, and his work was approaching completion. The final butting together of boards and waterproofing remained as his final tasks. The boat was almost twice as long as Aton was tall, and as wide as he could stretch from the tip of one hand to the other.

  At the beginning of his project, he had constructed a small shelter of wooden poles, roofed with branches and thatched with dry grass, so that he could work sheltered from the rains of the early spring, which had never come. As the season’s warmth increased, he had taken the shelter down, and now as the sun rose higher, he was glad for the shade of an adjacent tree.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Aton had barely begun working before Briand returned from fishing at the water’s edge and sprawled on the ground. He had tired of fishing; the constant adjustment of the tackle and the care necessary to keep the hook and line from catching in the branches had quickly proven too much for his patience. He lay on the grass with his feet toward the babbling stream and watched Aton change wood into boat.

  Briand gave him a scrutinizing look. “Aton, you’re no shipwright.”

  Although it was not finished yet, Aton had turned rough lumber from trees into finished planks that were suitable for a boat. He had clearly fit those boards together, and a boat was taking shape. He became irritated with his cousin’s interrogation and did not want to discuss his woodworking skills, so he just pointed at the boat to indicate that he obviously was a shipwright, or at least on the way to becoming one.

  “You have more faith in your designs than I do. Besides, what you really need is another horse. We should go to the village and find an impressive stallion for you. What do you think, Aton? A man on a fine steed will turn more than a few pretty heads.”

  “I already have a horse.”

  “And nobody to share the saddle with.”

  Aton stood angrily, a chisel in one hand, mallet in the other, with a death grip on each tool. Briand could see the look in his cousin’s eyes, a look with which he was all too familiar. The fact Aton was so silent with that cold expression meant that he was screaming inside his mind. Briand understood his cousin and was not physically scared of him, but realized he had gone too far with his comment. He had understood for a very long time that Aton possessed feelings of affection for Esina Regalyon, which she also shared with Aton. However discreet she had tried to keep her fondness for Aton, it was really no secret that Esina had deep and romantic feelings for him. However, she was the warlord’s daughter, and matrimony was usually the result of arrangement and coldhearted parental calculations, rather than from love between two people. Olar, her father and warlord over Aton’s clan, had never approved of the relationship. He had never considered Aton good enough for his daughter. Briand apologized with his eyes and with the silence that followed. When Aton commenced working again, Briand felt it was safe to continue the conversation.

  “It’s too big and it’s going to be too heavy.”

  “It’s the correct size. Who knows what I’ll find on my voyage or what I might return with? I’ll need the space.”

  “You can’t pick up this poor excuse for a boat, and if you try to slide it to the river you’ll damage the bottom and it will never float. A leaky boat is useless. You might as well have a pile of firewood.”

  “I’m not an impulsive brute like you, Briand. I have a plan.” Aton pointed to a low spot at the water’s edge. “Right there,” said Aton. “I’ll launch her from right there.”

  “The river is still too low. The spring rains are late this year. You'll scrape bottom before you get any distance away.”

  “Will I?” asked Aton, not concealing his irritation with his cousin’s scrutiny of his boat or journey.

  “Of course you will. That boat will only float a hand’s depth by itself, and I'm sure it’s barely that deep just past where we are now. What happens when you’re in it? Wa
it…don’t answer, because I already know. It will sink.”

  Aton replied with a sigh and rolled his eyes to show that he was extremely annoyed with the criticism.

  “Go ahead,” said Briand. “We’ll see about your plan. After a few days, you’ll be in the hands of the nomads.”

  “Maybe that’s what you would prefer?”

  “Ha!” laughed Briand. “You know I didn't mean that. I mean, the river runs straight into nomad territory. They’ve been raiding again and they’re thirsty for blood.”

  “The nomads can have the river. I’m headed to Lake Pontchartrain.”

  “Why? The lake is more than a day’s walk from here.”

  “Because I don’t know what’s out there. I want to go across the lake.”

  “Not many people do, but I’ve heard stories from sailors. It’s not a pleasant place to be if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s enormous, Aton. You might as well go to the ocean. You haven’t seen the ocean yet. There’s adventure and wealth that way if you become a merchant.”

  “Sailors are a rough crowd. Besides, I’m not interested in an ocean voyage or the huge swells and hurricanes that could come with it. Not in this boat.”

  “What about pirates? How can you defend yourself? You are…delicate, dear cousin.” He did not realize it, but he had looked at Aton’s skinny arms when he had said that, and caught a glare of resentment when he looked into Aton’s eyes.