by Philip Smith
The men were busy bustling around, breaking camp. Robert and Duelmaster were lashing long poles together and, in turn, lashing the men's packs to the pole stretcher. Twostaves and Dinendale were seeing to the fire, and Jesnake was checking everyone's weapons. Woodcarver sat on a large rock, just watching.
“Good morning, my liege!” Duelmaster said with a mock bow. Paige stood up to stretch her short legs.
“Duelmaster,” she said, “ if you insist on talking to me as if I were the queen of the world, I may just have to start acting like it!”
The fellows all laughed as Paige walked over to the fire to warm her partially numb fingers. Dinendale threw another log onto the fire, and he, too, began to warm his hands.
“Where’s Broadside?” she asked him.
He inclined his head upstream. “He went out to go fetch some of the fresh meat out of the creek.”
“You stash it there to keep it cool?”
He nodded.
Paige gazed about at her busy companions as they stowed all their gear. Since she’d fallen asleep as she was the night before, Paige’s own pack was more or less intact and ready to go.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.
“No. Those two can handle the packs. The rest of us are just killing time,” Twostaves said with a yawn.
“We do not have time to kill,” Jesnake said in a low tone, not looking up from examining the edge on one of Duelmaster’s rapiers.
“What are you doing?” Paige asked.
“He’s… uncomfortable about the river, so he wanted to check all the weapons himself,” Dinendale told her. He then proceeded to tell Paige about Jesnake’s gut feeling about the river last night. Paige listened with interest.
“You know, Jesnake may be right,” Paige murmured.
Dinendale shrugged. “Maybe so, but it’s not like we have any other viable options,” he said, strapping his sword belt to his thigh.
“I’m serious. Sometimes I get this tingling feeling in my spine and it only happens before something bad is about to happen. Maybe Jesnake gets that, too?”
“But does it happen every time something bad happens?” Dinendale asked. “Like last night, did you feel anything like that happen?”
“Well, no,” Paige stammered.
“Then it’s hardly a perfect science, and you of all people know we don’t have time to waste. Woodcarver isn’t worried. I spoke to him about it this morning. “
Paige felt uneasy, but nodded, glancing once again at Jesnake who had moved on to Broadside’s short sword, checking the edge one more time just to be sure. As if on cue, Broadside thundered into the clearing, carrying a sack of cloth that looked like it might have once been a shirt.
“Here’s breakfast!” he said.
Dinendale looked down at the little fellow. “Where’s the other one?” the dark elf asked.
The little man looked surprised. “There was only one,” he insisted.
“Uh, no.... I tied the other one to the same tree branch,” Twostaves insisted.
The dwarf shrugged. “Well, it must have slipped into the river or something,” he said, tossing Dinendale the bag.
“Stubby giant’s fingers never were very good at tying knots,” muttered Robert.
Twostaves shot him a nasty look, but didn’t chose to argue this time. Paige felt grateful.
“Unless something else took it.” Jesnake’s face turned pale.
Within moments, the meat that hadn’t washed away was sizzling on a greenwood spit. While it roasted, they took turns lashing packs to a stretcher Twostaves had cinched together with a staff on each side. Once the gear was secured, they all sat down and ate the Impasca meat with relish. They polished off the meat and were also pleasantly surprised to find wild raspberries for dessert, thanks to Woodcarver, who had procured them on a walk he’d taken early that morning.
Once they put the fire out, the troop headed downstream to the spot that Duelmaster had scouted out the night before. Upon a brief inspection of the bank, it was agreed upon that the water here at about five feet deep was as shallow as it was going to get.
“Best take off the footwear if we want to keep both shoes for the rest of the journey!” Duelmaster said, scooping up a handful of wet slimy mud from under the surface of the river.
“Wet clay. Delicious,” Robert groaned. “Nobody get stuck, okay?”
So off came the boots and moccasins and into the water they plunged.
Duelmaster led the procession with a tall sapling prodding the path in front of them to find the best route. Jesnake followed next, his ebony longbow held high in one hand, a throwing knife gripped in the other with knuckles as white as an Impasca’s belly. Paige followed behind him, Broadside after her, his lip quivering as he braved the water with as much dignity as he could muster. Robert and Twostaves followed behind the whimpering dwarf, holding the gear stretcher between them on their shoulders; this was also to give Broadside something to grab hold of once they got to areas too deep for the dwarf to keep his head above water. Woodcarver came up behind them, and Dinendale took up the vanguard.
Paige winced at the chill of the water when she first stepped in. She was surprised to feel a strong current despite the rather peaceful looking surface. She felt her toes start to go numb. Though the water only reached her chest, it was fast chilling the rest of her body.
“This is a rather strange river,” commented Robert, looking down at the water, their footsteps making bubbles appear from the mud below.
“How so?” asked Twostaves.
“This water is blue! I mean, look at it! I know it looked blue on shore, but in normal water, we’d be able to see our feet and the bottom. I can’t!”
“He’s right,” commented Jesnake. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Ouch!” Paige’s bare foot slipped on the bottom of the slimy, mirky riverbed. It felt like something had pulled her heel loose, and she assumed it to be the current. She slid and started to fall. In the second it would have taken a bumblebee to flap a wing, Jesnake snapped his upper body around and caught her wrist, keeping her from getting all wet, while still holding his bow.
“Are you ok?” he asked, his tone direct and urgent.
“Yes. Just a loose stone,” she said as he practically drug her towards the opposite shore. They were making a slow go of it with the bottom being so sticky with the wet, clay-ridden mud.
“Aw, acorns!” Duelmaster spat, coming to a halt.
“What happened!?” Jesnake demanded, worry lacing his tone.
“I’ve gotten my foot stuck.”
“Well, pull it out! We’ve gotta get out of this water!”
“If I could get it out, Jesnake, wouldn’t that, by its very definition, be quite the opposite of stuck?”
“Don’t get snippy with me. Hold on,” the elf snapped, pushing his way up to Duelmaster. He pulled hard, trying to help the dryad’s feet out of the soggy, soppy riverbed. The rest of the group stood in the current, water up to their chests, in uneasy silence. All except Broadside, who clung to the gear stretcher like a man in a shipwreck clinging to a bobbing headboard.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit!” Broadside was muttering to himself over and over again.
“We get it!” Robert sighed, exasperated.
“AHHHH! SOMETHING TOUCHED ME!”
Paige whirled around to see the dwarf thrashing and clambering atop the pile of packs and attempting to crawl up Twostaves to sit on his shoulders. The giant protested loudly, as he could not swat off the hairy parasite without dropping all the gear into the river.
“Stop your yappering, you moron!” Robert shouted.
“Easy for you to say. You can reach the bottom! I’ll sink! Sink like a rock! And I’m telling you something slid past my leg!”
“Enough dwarf. You’ll drown us both!” Twostaves bellowed. Broadside stopped squirming, coming to rest atop the giant’s shoulder like a fat, hairy parrot.
&
nbsp; “Look,” Robert said, jerking his chin downstream. A small branch was bobbing along the surface of the river, disappearing from view temporarily as it was sucked under by the current, then reappearing. Broadside grumbled something about sticks not wriggling but was largely ignored.
“Got it! Alright lads, tally ho!” Duelmaster called out as he and Jesnake began pushing forward towards the opposite bank again. Soon Paige could feel the clay growing stiffer underfoot and eventually became mirky sand and pebbles until she reached dry ground. She turned and watched as the others made their way to the bank. She rubbed her ankle where the current had pulled her foot loose, feeling it sting as the chilly air dried it out with a slight breeze.
“What on earth?” she exclaimed aloud. There were tiny scratches along her ankle, deep and bleeding like a dozen parchment cuts. Jesnake appeared by her side in an instant.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded. He followed her gaze and didn’t even wait for her to respond, bending down to examine the small wounds.
“It’s not so bad. Just looks like it’s bleeding a lot because my foot is still wet,” she tried to reassure him, but the elf didn’t listen. He leapt to his feet and dashed towards the river where Woodcarver and Dinendale were still slogging towards the shore.
“Din, get out!”
Dinendale looked up and made a questioning face as Jesnake waved frantically.
“Get out! There’s blood in the water!”
“What?”
“THERE'S BLOOD IN THE WATER!”
Paige felt her spine tingle. Her heart stopped. She screamed as absolute primal terror gripped her by the heartstrings and squeezed her chest till her knees felt weak.
Behind Dinendale, gliding through the water like an arrow on a windless day, was the most terrifying creature she had ever seen. It was serpent-like with a long, slender body that must have been at least twenty paces long and as thick as a cypress tree. It’s skin gleamed a slippery white as it’s tight interlocking scales skimmed the water with speed and agility. It had the head shaped like a cougar bereft of ears. Its sickly white eyes glared above the waterline. Teeth as long and sharp as a dirk stuck out of its upper jaw complemented by a long row of sharp spines that went down the length of the creature’s backbone atop it’s flat, eel-like tail.
Gliding along the surface of the water with ease, the creature made for Dinendale, who was desperately trying to run through the clay riverbed to shore. The group screamed and yelled at him to hurry, and Jesnake loosed an arrow at the beast, hoping to scare it away. The arrow struck the beast on the side of the body and glanced off like a pebble hitting a steel shield.
“Come on, Din!” Robert yelled, and the elf pushed on as fast as he could. But suddenly Dinendale stopped short in the water. By the look of panic etched into his face, Paige could tell his foot was stuck. She bolted to the gear stretcher and yanked her own bow out of it’s housing, fumbling with the string in panic. But she was too late. The creature reached her trapped friend and reared its massive head out of the water. It bared its fangs and rose, dripping, out of the blue water to strike at his helpless victim. Jesnake loosed another arrow at the beast’s exposed underbelly, and this time the arrow stuck. The beast cried out in pain, the sound resembling someone dragging their nails down a slab of slate. Those on shore all covered their ears and cried out in agony as the sound drove through their ears.
The beast lunged, mouth open to bite at the elf. As it struck at Dinendale, he was frantically trying to draw his dirk from it’s scabbard. Then, in a great splash, the serpent drug itself and Dinendale down into the murky blue depths.
“Dinendale!” Paige screamed. The men started rushing to the river, and then stopped and watched the churning water. They cried out for their friend, and looked frantically into the blue darkness for some trace of him. The river frothed with the thrashing of the beast. The earsplitting shrieks of the animal pierced the silence so fiercely that they drove Jesnake to his knees in pain. The waves crashed, river water shooting high into the air, and all the while, the fight slowly moved downstream.
“It’s dragging him to deeper water!” Duelmaster cried out. “Everyone shoot!”
“No! We might hit Dinendale!” Robert yelled.
The loudest scream from the beast yet sent all of them to their knees. The sound gave Paige a headache, the likes of which she’d not experienced since waking in Hanburg’s village, cutting through her brain like a hot knife. Then, quite suddenly, it all stopped; the noise, the trashing, the headache. All was silent. Each one got up off the ground and looked at the river apprehensively.
The water lay still, save some bubbles rising to the surface. It was as still as it had been an hour ago. They all held their breath. The blue water began to turn dark, and blood branched out with wispy fingers and stained the beautiful water as it flowed downstream with the current.
“NO!” Robert screamed. He began running to the bank, but Woodcarver grabbed him and held him back.
“Let me go, you pixie!” he screamed.
“Don’t be a fool. He’s gone. You can’t help him now!”
“This is all your fault! You brought us this way. You led us right to this thing!”
“I had no idea such a beast-” Woodcarver tried to say.
Robert interrupted, “I don’t care what you knew! I’m getting him back dead or alive!” Robert tried to barge past him, but the magician threw him to the ground.
“You listen here you rash, arrogant unthinking excuse for a warrior!” he yelled back.
Robert glared at him, and then threw a fist into the sand.
“GAHHHHHH!” he shouted, his hoarse roar cutting through the air with an anguishing roar. But as soon as he’d released the initial outburst, his shoulders began to shake with tears that would not be restrained. Paige felt the tears well up in her own eyes until they spilled over like waterfalls running down her fair cheeks. She sank to her knees and looked down at the grassy bank. Tears fell silently to the earth as she began to choke on sobs that left her throat feeling hoarse and thick while her heartbeat drummed in her temples.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump.
“Hey! You stupid dwarf, get back here!” she heard Woodcarver shout angrily. She heard the splash of someone jumping into the water, and her head snapped up just in time to see Broadside in the river, armor and all, paddling like a drowning puppy. He was struggling to swim to the spot that the fighting beast and elf had gone down. As soon as he thrashed about enough to reach it, he took a deep breath, and then plunged himself beard first into the blue water.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump.
“Are you daft!?” Woodcarver yelled. For a moment, there was nothing. No bubbles or ripples gave any clue to the dwarf’s position. Moments began to drag on, as agony gripped the group when the dwarf failed to make it to the surface.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump.
It felt like someone had taken a battering ram straight to the gut and then stuffed her mouth with sour sawdust.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump.
The bubbles and froth swirled around atop the water like ghosts slipping down stream and out of sight.
Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump.
A splash downstream caused them all to start. They leapt up as one and sprinted downstream where emerged a soaked and heaving dwarf, dragging the limp body of an elf towards the shore through the bushes. Robert and Duelmaster ran into the shallows and grabbed the two drenched members of the Brotherhood, pulling them to the shore. Broadside was gasping and gulping for air, laying out on the soft, sandy bank, his round belly heaving with every breath. Robert dragged Dinendale’s still form next to the dwarf.
“He’s not breathing! Dinendale!” Robert shouted, shaking him hard. “Dinendale! Wake up!”
“Woodcarver do something!” Paige shouted. “Use your magic!”
“Move!” Woodcarver yelled. “Princess, hold his head up!”
Paige dropped to her knees beside Dinendale and took her friend’s head in her hands, g
azing at the elf’s ashen face. Dinendale’s lips were blue, his eyes closed, his chest still and unbreathing. Woodcarver took out a hunting knife and slit through the elf’s shirt. Dinendale’s body was the color of the sky on a rainy day save for large gashes and holes where the river serpent had bitten him repeatedly. Dark blood seeped from the wounds.
“Hold him still,” Woodcarver barked. She froze, willing her shaking hands to stop moving. The wizard placed a gloved hand at the base of the elf’s breast bone. He counted to three, then quickly pushed, counted to three again, and pushed again. He repeated this four times.
