D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

A path snaked out of the village in the opposite direction from the ocean. Since I hadn’t been there yet, I figured it must be the way to the river. After walking about a hundred yards through the forest, I began to hear the sound of rushing water. A few yards further along, I hit it. The path ended at the bank of a river that looked to be about twenty yards across. I knelt down on the bank and dipped my hand in. Yeow! It was like sticking my hands into a bucket of ice. I’m sure it was fed by snowmelt from the mountain, and rivers fed by snowmelt are frigid. But I was feeling all crusty from sleeping in animal skins and breathing smoke from the fire, so cold or not, I had to get wet. I took a deep breath and splashed water on my face. Wow. It was like a thousand needles stinging me, but it actually felt pretty good. I took a big gulp and swished out my mouth. I wished I had my toothbrush, but this would have to do.

That’s when I heard thecrack of a broken branch. Somebody was nearby! I heard someone humming a sweet tune. It was coming from just a few yards away. I think under normal circumstances I would have turned and left, but something compelled me to investigate. Remember how I described the people of this village? There was no joy here. There was only the sad business of survival. So hearing a pleasant tune being hummed felt out of left field. It made me want to see who it was. As strange as this seems, knowing that one of the Milago would actually want to hum a song made me feel that there might be some hope left in these people after all.

I remember going on a hike with my dad once through a forest that had been recently destroyed by fire. We were surrounded by nothing but the burned and black remains of what had once been a wonderful, green thicket. It was sad, until I saw that growing out from beneath a fallen log was a single, green fern leaf. As horrible as the devastation was, this one leaf was proof that one day the forest would return to normal. Hearing this tune coming through the woods made me think of that single fern leaf and I wanted to see who was singing it. So I quietly snuck through the brush toward the sound. When I pushed back the final branch between me and the singer, I saw that it wasn’t one of the Milago after all.

It was Loor. She was kneeling on a rock with her back to me, washing out some clothes. I was disappointed at first, but this posed another interesting puzzle. As I told you, Loor is a hard case. I don’t know much about the territory where she and Osa came from, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that these two were warriors. Osa had a calm way about her. She reminded me of one of those Black Belt guys who are so confident in their fighting abilities that they are actually gentle people. Of course, if you messed with them, they’d kick your ass. Loor, on the other hand, didn’t have that calm thing going on. She seemed ready for a good ass kicking all the time. Maybe it was because she was young and hadn’t gotten that wisdom comes with age thing. It didn’t matter though, all I knew was that she scared the hell out of me. But seeing her on this rock, with her hair undone and humming a sweet tune seemed completely against character. Maybe there was a soft side to her that she kept hidden somewhere below all that macho stuff. Way below. She was facing away from me and had no idea I was there. Her long hair fell across her shoulders. It was deep black, and beautiful.

Now before you go thinking I was some kind of perv watching her from the bushes, you gotta realize that I was stuck. If I made a sound, she’d turn and see me watching her and probably pick up her stick and start playing Bobby the pinata boy. I wouldn’t blame her. My only hope was that she’d finish washing up and walk back along the river toward the path without ever knowing I was there. So I stood rock still, doing my best to look like a tree.

After what felt like a lifetime, Loor stood up and started to braid her hair…and that’s when I heard it. Another crack of a branch told me that somebody was walking up behind me. My heart pounded. I thought for sure that Loor would hear this, turn around, and catch me standing there like a doofus. I also thought that whoever was behind me was about to see me doing a peeping Tom number on Loor. But I was afraid to leave because Loor would surely catch me. None of these scenarios was very good.

What I didn’t realize was that there was another scenario that was worse than all the above.

“I’ve been looking for you, Pendragon,” came a deep voice that made Loor turn quickly in surprise. I turned too, and what I saw made my knees buckle. Standing behind me was one of Kagan’s knights! He towered over me holding a spear in one hand and a rope in the other.

The guy had me. In that instant I felt sure that Saint Dane, or Mallos, or whatever he called himself had sent this guy to bring me in, the same way they got Uncle Press. And I knew one other thing-I wasn’t going to go easily. So before the knight could make a move, I made my own move. I turned and ran for the river.

Loor didn’t have time to react and I made another snap decision. She was coming with me. As she scrambled to her feet, I launched myself into a full-on, horizontal, flying tackle. I hit her and we both went sailing off the rock into the river.

Cold? You don’t know cold until you jump into a river swollen from melted snow. The only reason it wasn’t frozen solid was because it was moving so fast. But the truth was, I didn’t care. If this river could get us away from that knight, it didn’t matter to me if it froze the blood in my veins. I could always get warm later.

We hit the river in a tumble of arms and legs. The water was flowing so fast that it swept us downriver and away from the knight. There was no way he could catch up with us. I looked back and saw him standing on the shore looking stupid. He wasn’t even going to try and catch up.

My attention went from getting away from the knight to surviving the river. You know when you first jump into the ocean you get a jolt of cold, but then your body quickly adapts and you get used to it? Well, not here. The river water was too cold for that. It felt like my body was actually freezing stiff. But I had to fight it, because we were in rapid whitewater, and that meant there were rocks. I heard once that if you’re caught in rapids like this, the best thing to do is point your feet down-river and go with it until you hit a calm patch where you can swim to the side. That was the plan, but Loor was making it tricky. She held on to me so tightly that I was having trouble moving my arms to maneuver. I had to get away from her or we’d both drown.

“Feet first!” I yelled. “Float on your back!” I tried to push away, but Loor wouldn’t back off. Then she said the three words I never expected to hear from this macho warrior girl. They were the three worst words you could hear in this situation, but she said them just the same.

“I cannot swim.”

Oh, great. No wonder she was clinging to me. This was bad. The river was swirling us around and every time we hit a drop, both our heads went under. Each time we came up sputtering, and I didn’t know how long our luck would hold out. I had to take control somehow or we were going to drown, or bash our heads into a rock and then drown. I thought maybe we could make a train with both of us on our backs. She’d go feet first and I’d cradle her from underneath while using my arms to guide us like a rudder.

“Feet downriver!” I shouted. “Face up, lie on me!”

She didn’t move. She couldn’t. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, it was because she was paralyzed with fear. I can’t imagine what it’s like not being able to swim, but it must be terrifying. And with her strength, there was no way I could pry myself loose. We hit another drop and both went under again. No sooner did we come up for air than we both slammed into a rock. I barely felt it because Loor took most of the hit with her back. It must have been crushing, because it made her loosen her grip on me. Instantly I grabbed her and flipped her onto her back.