by LeRoy Clary
The staff filled Shell’s hand, and his grip was intentionally nearer one end, instead of the usual defensive grip in the center. He swung the staff wildly around his head in a full circle. Another fighter, one who had seen a staff used in a similar manner, would have dived to the ground and rolled out of reach. Shell increased the strength of his grip and used his back and shoulders to let the heavy staff make the second spin while he braced for the strike.
Moving at full speed, the end of the staff struck the thin man high on his shoulder, hard enough to crack bones. When the staff bounced off him, Shell used that momentum to draw it back and jab an end directly into the stomach of the charging second man. The man realized what was about to happen an instant before Shell buried it into the man’s flabby middle, but it had been far too late for the man to prevent it. He flopped down to the ground and moaned in agony.
Shell pulled the staff back and leaned on it, as he said, pointing to the first man he had struck, “That arm is broken, I think.” He didn’t address the other because he was too busy vomiting and groaning to listen.
“Now I’m forced to ford the river tonight, or I can kill both of you so I can get some sleep without fearing another attack,” Shell spoke earnestly, but allowed some of his anger to filter through. When he saw no remorse, he gave up. Both robbers had become silent and were now looking at him with pleading eyes. He went to the first one and ripped away the purse from the strings attaching it to his belt. A faint jingle sounded, dull and muted. Inside were three copper tabs, the smallest coins issued by the King.
One tab paid for a small mug of cheap, watered wine, mostly water. The purse of the other robber held a single copper coin, which was worth ten tabs, enough to buy two poor quality meals. After a brief inspection, Shell found nothing else of value, not even their knives, which were worse than his.
Their eyes followed his every movement, the groaning and puking mostly over; the first held his left arm with his other hand as he rocked in pain. The other man just lay curled up with his knees near his chin in the mud. Shell said, “I could feel guilty taking your money, but I don’t. The inconvenience of wading across the river tonight should cost you more coins than what you have.”
He rolled his almost dry blanket and gathered his other things. He stood near the two robbers and suggested, “You might look for an honest way to earn a living. If we meet again, I will kill you.”
He turned away and chose to walk downstream. At the very edge of being able to hear them, one said in a rasp, as if clearing something distasteful from his mouth, “Dragon Clan.”
Shell smiled. He hurried downstream, watching for a place to cross the river, then decided that if he could cross, so could they. Having them behind him wouldn’t let him get any sleep, so he circled away from the river and made his way back to where he’d left them.
They were gone. He tracked them upstream for a way, then they turned away from the river and into some low hills. The half-moon and bright stars provided enough light to track them, and since they were not trying to conceal their tracks, it was easy. Most of the time they used a well-worn path.
He paused at a pile of boulders, most of them larger than the hut his family lived in, and carefully advanced. Voices drifted in the night air. He moved closer and saw six people gathered around a small fire. He recognized the pair that had attacked him, but another man was doing the fierce talking and shouting. Even though Shell couldn’t understand the words from the distance he watched, he recognized the anger the speaker displayed.
Shell watched as he chastised the injured men. He stood before them waving his arms and still shouting while pointing at the river where the attack had taken place. Two others who had not attacked Shell stood up and hurried off to a hut, only to return with weapons in their hands. The three of them headed along the path Shell stood beside.
He could confront them, but he could lose a fight against three men. Even fighting two opponents was usually silly if it could be avoided. Before at the river, he had surprise and skill on his side, and those two things equaled another man in that fight. Now there were three armed men ready to chase him down like an animal and he realized not crossing the river so he could pursue them had been a good choice. Shell stepped back deeper into the dense underbrush brush and stood still, letting the night shadows of the bushes hide him.
All three moved fast, almost trotting. They were in a hurry to catch up with him. One held twin spears, one in each hand. A second held a bow, and the leader wore a short sword at his hip and a bow over his shoulder. They passed so close that Shell could have reached out and grabbed any of the three. Instead, he waited and watched, allowing only his eyes to move with them as they went past.
Shell again had two choices. Sneak away and hope he could evade them, or follow and try to attack them one at a time, but never fighting all three at the same time. He didn’t like either choice, but a possible third option drew his attention. Only three people remained at the campfire, two of them injured. One had looked like a woman, but he couldn’t tell for sure. He could attack their camp.
Old Man Alba had been right. You can’t tell what might happen just over the next hill. Shell made his choice.
CHAPTER THREE
Shell didn’t believe sneaking off into the dark to escape the highwaymen pursuing him was an option. He imagined sitting alone each night, scared of stray sounds and the highwaymen’s reappearance, and that didn’t appeal. Neither did watching for them around each bend of the paths he followed. They named the tune, so he would sing it.
Waiting in the darkness under the bushes, he hid in the deepest shadows where he could see the clearing in front of the three crudely built huts. The three men pursuing him would probably search near the river all night, but the three people still in the camp deserved a visit from him in return for the harm they tried to do to him. The one he had decided was a woman by her diminutive size and movements, helped set the broken arm of the screaming man. Shell waited until they finished, and the two men headed for one hut while she went to another.
Still, he waited. The huts had been built of brushwood piled against a framework of greasewood and juniper, all local plants, and the only available sources to use for construction. The small willows and cottonwoods growing beside the stream he’d passed were half a day’s walk away. To build on the grasslands, you used what the rolling hills offered, and that is generally a choice between tall grass and stunted shrubs or both.
Yellow light from oil lamps escaped through the many cracks of the walls in both occupied huts. Eventually, the lights went out. Shell checked his desire to rush ahead and slip into the camp, and hopefully convince them to leave him alone in the future. The third hut drew his attention. That one had looked empty and still was, as far as he knew. Near midnight he crept closer and carefully opened its door an inch. He froze and listened. Hearing no breathing inside, he opened it further and sniffed. A room containing a person smells different than an empty one, but he saw, smelled, and heard nothing.
Leaving the door open to shed a little starlight inside, he felt his way to an empty sleeping pallet and a crudely made chair. He continued working his way around the room, following the walls to a second pallet. A light would have hastened his search, but with the shoddy construction, enough light would spill from the walls for one of the others to see it if they were not asleep.
His hand touched a table made from a tree stump. On top of it, he found the first item he searched for, which was an oil lamp. A small jar filled with lamp oil sat on the bare floor. Carrying the lamp and oil, he continued his search, and behind the door discovered one of the things he’d hoped to find; a bow and quiver of arrows, both surprisingly well crafted from the brief inspection he gave them. They must have stolen these from another traveler. These are not the kind of people to own good weapons.
He slipped the bow over his head and adjusted it to fit comfortably on his shoulder. The quiver went over the other shoulder, with the arrows in easy reach.
Filled with the satisfaction of the finds, his hand touched the jar of oil and the lamp again. Outside in the starlight, he dribbled oil around the base of the hut, then quickly, but quietly moved to the other huts. After emptying the oil jar on them, he went to the dying campfire and placed a dry stick on the red coals. When it caught fire, he used it to light the lamp.
With restraint, while hurrying, his heart pounded. He went to the hut where the two men had entered and touched the flame of the lamp to the spilled oil. The fire flickered, caught, and quickly spread. He hurried to the hut where the woman entered and did the same. On his way to the third hut, he paused, saw how fast the huts were burning and called out, “Fire!”
He knelt in the shadow at the base of the last hut as he watched the people spill out of the burning huts, confused and trying to wake up to face the emergency. He lit the last hut on fire and backed quickly into the shadows of the boulders that surrounded the area before the light from the flames could betray him. He went deeper into the dense brush to hide and watch. Turning, he made sure all three people were safely outside as they tried to put out the fires. That’ll keep them busy for a while.
They’d never look back at the incident the same as Shell. They would curse and blame him for their troubles because that’s the kind of people they were. Others were always at fault, not them. But if they had let him go unmolested when he tried to cross the river, their huts and belongings wouldn’t have burned. Hopefully, they would move on and find another place to rob innocent people instead of following him. Better yet, they might move on and take up new occupations.
More likely, they’d chase Shell until their boots wore out, but he hoped they’d had enough and feared chasing him would cause them more grief. He remembered an old joke about fools chasing a man until he caught them. But it would not be a joke if they did catch up. He would die, probably painfully, or they would. Shell decided the next encounter would end differently than they wished.
In his eyes, they were now even. They had tried to hurt him and steal his belongings. In return, he destroyed their huts and injured two of them. But if they followed with the desire to injure or kill him, he intended to end the situation for good. For now, he had a distance to put between himself and any highwaymen foolish enough to follow.
Shell traveled upstream in the darkness, always keeping the sounds of the river on his left since the three searching for him had gone downstream. He made satisfactory progress. The ground was drying out and the footing firmer than the last two days. When he caught a glimpse of the river, it had receded even more than the early afternoon. As he followed the muddy bank northward, the river widened, and the current slowed as the water grew more shallow. Ahead it seemed to narrow again and probably ran faster up there, so he decided he’d reached the best place to cross.
Glancing behind drew a frown as it clearly showed his footprints in the mud, so trying to hide his intentions was silly because the evidence was clear for anyone to see. He waded into the cool water and allowed the current to brush against his legs, testing both the water’s speed and footing. It moved gently, and his feet only sank in a little. He took another tentative step. Then another. And another. After ten steps, the water was only knee deep. He plunged ahead.
By morning the river would shrink again to become a wide stream, and later in the day a dry wash. The water rose to his thighs near the middle, and a touch of worry briefly filled his mind, but then he walked out of the water instead of into it, the depth growing less with each step. The level decreased to ankle high, and then he stood on the far bank, safe and reasonably dry.
Another look behind found a bright point of light against the depth of the night, where the huts still glowed, not as brightly as earlier. There had been no way for them to put out the fires he’d started, not with the oil he’d poured on the huts and the distance to the river for water to pour on them. By now only a few embers told where three huts had been, and his name would be cursed a hundred times before dawn. Shell stood on a sandstone shelf and instead of walking in the soft mud, he moved along the harder surface and continued slowly and carefully, leaving few tracks for followers.
The elevation of the land rose, and as always, when he reached the crest he saw another hill ahead. But as he followed a sandstone shelf he came to a depression that had already drained, the bottom dry. Looking behind again revealed the long upward slope he’d followed, he could see the river dimly in the distance.
He pulled a few sage bushes and uprooted two small junipers and placed them on the lip of the depression, on the downhill side where they helped hide him from being seen from the trail. From a prone position behind the bushes, he could watch his back trail and see anyone following long before they saw him. With luck, they could walk within twenty steps of him and never know he lay there, with his new bow strung and ready to let arrows fly.
But he also planned for a backdoor exit, also unseen from the trail. That provided his two options, again. Two choices.
After a last look, he unrolled his blanket and lay down on one-half, pulling the other half over him for a cover. Sleep had escaped him for a couple of nights, and he intended to make up for some of it. He woke half a dozen times before sunrise, carefully checking the path and surrounding area each time, but nobody followed. Later, after the sun came up, he continued napping the morning away, figuring that if they were going to follow him, it would be in daylight. So instead of leaving, he remained and caught up on his sleep.
Shortly after mid-day, Shell stood and stretched since there were still no signs of pursuit. A few minutes later he continued walking east, feeling confident that he was safe from them. The incident impressed upon him that not all strangers understood he wanted to be a hero, and his quest might be fanciful and perhaps silly, but standing in his way could get someone killed—or they might lose their huts to fire. He felt a grin spreading and suppressed it.
In no way, did he make light of the situation, or think it a joking matter. No, it put a stamp of seriousness on the venture that he probably needed because he hadn’t considered getting into any fights before he arrived in Breslau. He couldn’t thank the men who wanted to rob him, but perhaps he did owe them a debt for warning him of the hardships sure to follow.
The Raging Mountains that had seemed so much closer two days ago were still as far away as ever, or so it seemed. He was almost out of food and expected to go hungry for a few days, but fortunately, he had crossed several streams lately. A man can live without eating, but he must drink, and streams offered food.
At a trickle of a stream, late on the fifth day, he noticed a place where the bank had caved in long ago and left a shallow depression covered with sand. A small fire would be safe from discovery, especially if he dug out the sand and made his fire there where the flames would be hidden from direct sight. But the fire wasn’t the primary reason for stopping early at that location. The stream was.
As he approached the stream edge slowly, he looked in the deep water, peering into the rocky bottom and spotted crayfish scuttling about in the mud between the rocks. He gathered a fistful of the long dry grass and twisted strands until he wove four tube traps, all with wide openings where the crayfish could enter easily, but not escape.
He located periwinkles attached to rocks, a tiny freshwater clam in the mud, a grasshopper, and an earthworm. They were captured and placed in the traps as bait. While the bait worked, hopefully attracting the crayfish, he gathered firewood and scooped out a deep hole to help hide the fire from a distance, then built a ring of rocks. He wouldn’t light it until dark because of smoke rising in the clear sky telling anyone with eyes where he was.
When he checked the traps, he found more than twenty crayfish. Without a bowl or a way to keep them, he left them in the traps and reset them in the water before climbing the tallest hill and sitting at the top to watch, and make sure he was the only person in sight.
Later, he roasted the crayfish by setting them on the hot rocks surrounding the fire and wis
hed for more to eat. The fire soothed his spirits as well as warmed his body in a way that had little to do with the chill of the night. But he had a reasonably full belly, and when the sun rose, he stood, eager and ready to walk a full day.
The mountains looked a little taller in the morning, and the snow-capped peaks higher, the air more invigorating. As he walked, the vegetation changed slightly, showing more green, and the shrubs grew taller. Shell became so relaxed he almost missed the footprints in the soft dirt that crossed his trail.
Shell pulled to a stop in mid-stride, eyes focused on the ground. Two footprints were visible in the soft dirt, both distinct and clearly fresh as if someone had just run across the path. His eyes flashed around, searching for the person who left them. When he didn’t see anyone, he took a knee to shield himself from their sight and measured the prints against his.
The footprint near his hand held sharp edges still standing upright, no dust or sand had blown inside, and it looked as fresh as those he’d left a few steps behind. The print was a little larger than his. Shell’s fingers felt for the pommel of his knife and hesitated. Instead, he slipped the bow he’d never used off his shoulder, strung it and fitted an arrow before standing slowly to reach a crouched position and look around. The bow seemed a better option than the staff because it would reach further, but he kept the staff near his left hand as a backup. He’d never used the bow but thought it might provide an advantage if distance became an issue.
He used all his senses trying to locate the maker of the footprints, a single person who must be very close because the prints were so fresh. The ground fell away from the path that wound around the side of the hill in the direction the prints led. An expanse of brown grass waved in the breeze all the way to a creek in the distance, where the upward side of another hill revealed itself. The grass stood almost waist high everywhere he looked. There were no trees, few shrubs, no large boulders, or ravines the stranger could slip behind or into, and anyone wading through the grass would leave a swath of bent plants behind, easy to locate.
