R. Salvatore - The Ancient

“No, elder, but…” Canrak stopped and licked his lips. “Half right,” he said, and turned the rudder appropriately, which presented an obstacle for Androosis as he hauled the long line to Canrak’s right. The young man moved outside the angle of the turned rudder, looking intently at the obviously disturbed Canrak all the while.

“Half right and bring us straight, and open the sail wide to the breeze,” Toniquay ordered. “And paddle, the both of you. Strong and straight.”

“We are not that deep,” Canrak dared say, but if Toniquay even heard him, he didn’t show it.

Canrak turned directly to Androosis then and gave a concerned look, but the young man, not nearly as experienced with the ways of Mithranidoon, had no response. He kept hauling, and tossed one or two sour looks back at Toniquay, who had his back to him and paid him no heed at all. This wasn’t about fishing, Androosis now fully understood. Toniquay hadn’t come out here to secure the day’s catch. This trip was about Androosis, wholly, and about the conspiracy of the young adults who so desperately wanted to get off this smothering lake.

Even so, the boat’s turn had Androosis surprised, as it had obviously unnerved the other three. Beside Androosis, Canrak licked his lips repeatedly and kept his hand tight on the tiller, obviously anticipating, and hoping for, Toniquay’s command to change course yet again.

But the shaman didn’t make a move or utter a sound, and the small craft glided through the mist. Canrak’s warning that they were “not that deep” echoed in Androosis’s thoughts.

A dark form loomed in the water, ahead and to port, a rock, prodding up like a signpost warning intruders.

“Holy Toniquay,” Canrak started to say, but was interrupted when the shaman said, “Androosis, to the front.”

“The line…” Androosis started to reply.

“Leave it, and go forward to watch our depth.”

Androosis scrambled past the old shaman and the two paddlers. He stumbled and knocked over one of the buckets, spilling water and a trout onto the flat hold. He started for the fish, but met the disapproving glare of Toniquay as he bent and thought better of it, practically falling all over himself to get back to the prow.

He leaned far over, putting his face near the water, trying to get an angle in the light that would give him the best view to gauge the depth. They weren’t that shallow at all, he realized to his relief, though another rock showed off to port, protruding several feet into the air above the water level.

He turned back to report such to Toniquay, and met the shaman’s bemused expression, the man pointing past Androosis, dead ahead.

When he looked forward again, Androosis understood-everything. Less than fifty running strides away loomed a dark and foreboding beach, sharply inclined and covered with black, sharp-edged lava rock. Just a short distance up and away from the steaming water, the rock mingled with fingers of ice and snow, creating a stark contrast of white and black, each segment of the mix appearing as hardened as the other. A few scraggly tree skeletons showed among the stones, but they hardly constituted a sign of life, seeming more like a warning, warding away any living thing.

The mist blew across Androosis’s field of vision, alternately thick and thin, and in a moment of clarity, he picked out among that desolate landscape a series of caves.

He knew this place for what it was, then, and he spun on Toniquay as if to scream an accusation.

“This is the destination of your dreams,” the shaman said. “This is the promise of foolish Milkeila. Look well upon the desolation.”

“This is one spot,” Androosis sputtered.

“Too close to the trolls,” the man paddling to Toniquay’s left quietly, almost inaudibly, remarked, and he lifted his paddle from the water and brought it across his lap. His companion did likewise, and both stared at the shaman eagerly, as if in anticipation of an order that would get them fast away from this dangerous place.

“There are many such spots,” the shaman retorted, ignoring the paddlers’ words, actions, and expressions. “And you would need to stumble upon just one to be slaughtered. Nay, you would not even have to find one to arrive swiftly at your grave, fool. We are not like our mainland kin. We have lost their ways of survival, as our blood has lost its thickness. As it has thinned from the warmth of Blessed Mithranidoon. I warn you now, with this fate clear before you, our patience…”

A splash in the water just to the north of their position interrupted Toniquay’s rant.

“Glacial troll,” Canrak warned, his knuckles white on the tiller, and the two paddlers stared hard at the shaman.

Another splash sounded. As he glanced fast over his shoulder, Androosis thought he caught some motion near the caves.

“Do you understand now, young one?” said Toniquay, trying hard to keep himself calm and collected, obviously. “You think this all a game, a play for excitement.”

“Holy Toniquay, we must be gone,” Canrak dared say, and the shaman spun about and glowered at him, even lifted a hand as if he meant to strike at the man.

But the paddlers weren’t waiting for the order any longer, and by the time the shaman turned back forward, they had already splashed their paddles into the water, the man to the right pulling hard, the one to the left reversing his motion, so that even without Canrak’s work on the tiller, they set the boat into a standing turn.

And Canrak did work the tiller to aid them, despite the look from Toniquay. Another splash sounded, then two more in rapid succession. It wasn’t about decorum or who was officially in charge. It was about simple survival.

Even the stubborn shaman seemed to understand that, for when he turned back fully, he did not berate the three, but kept his focus squarely on Androosis. “Mark you well the lesson of this day,” he warned, waggling a long and bony finger at the man.

The square sail fell limp for a long while as frantic Canrak finished the turn, then went to work on the ropes, but the paddlers fell into a swift and efficient rhythm, and the small boat began to move away from the shore into the safety of the mist. After a few moments they all began to breathe easier.

But then both paddlers jerked suddenly. One nearly went over the side before falling back into the boat, his hands empty, while the other put up a brief tug-of-war, hauling his paddle in with all his strength, so much so that he lifted the top half of the troll clutching the other end right out of the water. The Alpinadoran sailor screamed, but to his credit, he did not let go of the paddle-the precious and vital paddle!

Of course, that didn’t help any of them a moment later when a second troll speared out of the water, rising high into the air like a fish leaping for an insect. With tremendous momentum, it climbed up higher than the sailor holding the paddle, and as it descended, it grabbed him by the collar. Before the others in the boat could react, the sailor, the two trolls, and the paddle went over the side.

Androosis started for the spot, but stopped and spun about as another troll lifted into the air before the boat, angled to land on the prow. Androosis timed his heavy punch perfectly, catching the aqua-colored creature square on the jaw as it landed, and before it could gain any traction. The troll’s head snapped to the side as the young barbarian followed through with all his weight, driving the creature over the rail and back into the water. It thrashed about on the surface for a heartbeat, then dived down, and Androosis knew it would be back, leaping high once more.

He couldn’t wait for that. Behind him, the boat erupted in fighting as one troll after another flew up into the air and crashed down inside the hold.