Jonathan Rogers - The Way of the Wilderking

“Friend, I believe you got the master gully I ever seen,” Dobro announced.

“Why, thank you,” the man said with mock modesty. “I dug it myself.”

Dobro raised his eyebrow. “Must have takened you a long time.”

“Not really,” the old farmer said. “I finished in a day.”

Dobro whistled. “Mister, I’d surely love to watch you work a shovel.”

The man laughed. “I didn’t use a shovel. I used a plow.”

Dobro gave Aidan a significant look. “See,” he said, “I told you working a plow was a dangerous way to pass the time.” He looked at the looming walls of the gully. “Veezo hisself couldn’t have done this much damage with a plow in a single day.”

Aidan laughed and cut a look at the farmer. “He’s teasing you, Dobro. He didn’t dig this gully, certainly not in a single day.”

“I reckon I did too,” the farmer shot back. “That ain’t the sort of thing I’d lie about. And it sure ain’t the sort of thing I’d brag about.”

“He’s telling true,” said the boy before lying back in the bed of the wagon and covering his eyes with a floppy hat. He knew the story his father was about to tell and figured the old boy could tell it fine without his help.

The farmer pointed up the gully. “This is the property line between my farm and my neighbor’s-from here up this slope to where those two hills divide. About four years ago, I decided to plow a furrow right down this line to show where my farm ended and his farm began.” He made a slicing gesture with his hand, following the line of the gully.

“I knowed to plow a field across the slope, to keep the dirt from washing away. But I didn’t figure it would hurt anything to plow two or three furrows straight up this slope.”

He shook his head, as if to indicate how wrong he had been. “This here’s a natural drain anyway,” he said. He swept his hands down to a point to indicate the flow of water off the hills on either side of the gully. “First rainstorm to come through, half the topsoil in my furrow ended up in the road down there. Wasn’t many more rains before this gully was cut all the way down to the bedrock. Started widening from there.”

They had walked halfway up the gully by now, stepping over little sandbag walls every twenty strides or so. The ground level was a good four feet above their heads. Dobro was looking a little nervous about being “in a gully, down a hole,” as the old rhyme put it.

“How long ago did you say you plowed this spot?” Aidan asked.

“Four years ago.”

Aidan shook his head slowly. He was amazed so much had happened so quickly.

“But it only took a year or so for it to get this deep,” the farmer clarified. “It don’t take but a few freshet rains to cut all the way down to bedrock.” He stomped his boot on the flat chunk of rock where he stood.

The farmer looked up at the sun. “It’s getting late,” he said, then he gave a loud whistle for his horse. “If I aim to lay more sandbags today, I better hurry back to the barn for another wagonload.” The horse and wagon jangled up to the gully rim, and the farmer climbed up to ground level and into the driver’s seat. His son was still asleep in the bed of the wagon.

“Good-bye and good travels,” the farmer called as the wagon started moving. “And don’t plow down the slope!”

Aidan and Dobro took their time making their way back to the road. There were few really good flinging rocks to be had in Sinking Canyons, and Dobro was filling his pouch with rocks scattered on the gully floor. Aidan enjoyed a few minutes of shade beneath the western bank before they had to get back on their horses. He was crumbling a handful of red clay when he heard a most unexpected sound: Maaaaaa-aaah!

Aidan looked up into the yellow-green eyes of a nanny goat peering over the edge of the gully. The head of a billy goat appeared beside her with its curving horns, and then a spray of white hair and the brown, wrinkled face of Bayard the Truthspeaker.

“Bayard!” Aidan and Dobro shouted in joyful unison. They clambered out of the gully to embrace the old man. He still seemed strong and hearty. How old must he be now? thought Aidan.

“What a pleasant surprise!” said Bayard. Aidan wondered, however, if anything ever really surprised the old prophet. “Aidan Errolson and”-he looked over Dobro and pretended to have trouble recognizing him-“Dobro Turtlebane? But you’re so pink! Dobro, you haven’t gone civilized, have you?”

“Well, I…” Dobro began modestly.

“Not nearly as civilized as he thinks,” Aidan offered, “though he has become something of a theatergoer.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Bayard, “what are you doing in a gully?”

Dobro said, “Me and Aidan just run up with a sure-enough modern day Veezo, Bayard. Feller says he dug this whole gully with a plow.”

Bayard nodded. “I have seen such things before. But what are you doing in this part of the island? I knew the two of you had come out of the Feechiefen. But I thought you were in Sinking Canyons.”

“Don’t that beat all you ever heard?” asked Dobro. “A feechie living in a big hole in the ground!”

“‘Fallen are the Vezeyfolks,’” Bayard quoted. “‘In a gully, down a hole. No more fistfights, no more jokes.’” Dobro joined in on the chorus: “‘In a gully, down a hole.’”

“Every night I go to sleep with my mama’s voice in my head,” said Dobro. “‘Fallen are the feechiefolks, in a gully, down a hole.’ I wake up in the morning, and there I am, down a hole. Ain’t no place for feechiefolks, I can tell you.”

“But, Bayard,” Aidan said, “you said Vezeyfolks. ‘Fallen are the Vezeyfolks.’”

“Did I?” Bayard shrugged. “Dobro was talking about Veezo a minute ago. I must have confused ‘Veezo’ and ‘feechiefolks’ into ‘Vezeyfolks.’”

Aidan eyed Bayard. It wasn’t like him to mix up the old lore, whether it was feechie lore or civilizer lore. Was the old prophet starting to lose his wits in his old age?

“I understand you have an army now,” Bayard said.

“Yes,” Aidan answered.

“You’re going to need it. The Pyrthens are coming, you know.”

“Is that a prophecy?” Aidan asked. “Or just an observation?”

Bayard smiled. “You don’t have to be a prophet to predict that the Pyrthens are coming when a kingdom grows weak. Are you ready to fight?”

“We’ll have to be ready, won’t we? You make do with what you have.” Aidan began to think of everything he and his officers needed to do before the militiamen could really be called a serious fighting force.

“Old Errol’s been working them villagers pretty good,” Dobro offered. “Marchin’, shootin’ arrows at just-pretend soldiers, diggin’ tunnels. And when they ain’t doin’ that, Jasper’s got them diggin’ up timbers and cold-shiny pots and rubbish like that.”

Bayard laughed, though he had no idea what Dobro was talking about. “Aidan,” he asked, “what’s Dobro saying about digging up timbers and pots?”

Aidan was deep in thought about the inevitable battles against the Pyrthens. “Timbers and pots?” he repeated absently. “Oh, that. A flood in the canyons uncovered a piece of a shingled roof. We got to digging around, and we found what appears to be part of two or three cabins, an old plow, some pots and pans.”

“Cabins?” Bayard asked. “Why would there be cabins in the Clay Wastes?”

“We was hoping you might be able to tell us, Bayard,” Dobro said. “Arliss found a coin the other day had a picture of Harvo Hornhead on it.”

“Dobro says it looks like Harvo Hornhead,” Aidan said. “I think it looks like Halverd the Antlered, first king of Halverdy. It wasn’t a Corenwalder coin, though, or Halverden either. Had the word Veziland engraved on it.”