City of Jade

30

FIRE AND IRON

LATE AUTUMN, 6E6

The Otter set sail just after dawn, tending a barge loaded with sawn timber, the lumber itself from the Greatwood, that vast forest a Baeron protectorate in South Riamon.

Pipper and Binkton stood in the bow of the barque and watched as the little tender sailed about and nudged the barge this way and that to keep it more or less midstream of the mighty Argon River.

Captain Veni, an Arbalinian by birth, who had left that isle years past to become a river pilot and then a captain, came to stand beside them.

“How long till we reach Rivers End?” asked Pipper.

“The city, she be some hundred leagues down the waterway; and the Argon, she flows nigh a league each candlemark, twenty-four candlemarks a day without rest. So, if all goes as planned, we be on the drift a hundred candlemarks altogether.”

“Four days and a bit, then,” said Binkton.

“You know your ciphering, I see,” said Veni.

“We were well taught,” said Pipper, “by Uncle Arley back in the Bosky.”

“Ah, the Boskydells. I’ve ne’er dropped anchor there. Be it true a fanged barrier encircles the place?”

“Indeed,” said Pipper. “The Thornring. It’s kept the land free of trouble, all but during the Winter War.”

“Speaking of trouble,” said Binkton, “what did you mean when you said, ‘if all goes as planned’?”

“Well, they be some islands we need slip past, but now and again a defiant barge takes it in mind to land.”

“Did that ever happen to you?” asked Pipper.

“Nay. At least, not yet. But others do tell of the contrariness of the Argon.”

“Contrariness of the river?”

“Aye, some say the river decides on its own to push the barge ashore, though others tell the river serpent takes it in mind to do so instead.”

Binkton cast a skeptical eye toward the captain. “A river serpent, you say?”

“Not ‘a’ river serpent, lad, but ‘the’ river serpent.”

Binkton snorted but said nothing, while Pipper, his eyes agoggle with wonder, asked, “What does it look like, this river serpent?”

“Yellow it be, they say,” said Veni, and he waved toward the barge. “Three or four times as long as that scow, and as thick as a tree, with glowing green eyes as big as dinner plates, and a ridge of bloodred fur running the length of its black-spotted back. It has a mouth that’d swallow a cow whole, filled with long, backward-angled, pitchfork-like teeth so that once it grabs on it can’t let go. At least, that’s what they say.”

Again Binkton snorted in disbelief, but Pipper, his eyes still wide, said, “Oh, oh, I don’t ever want to see it. And I don’t want it to come in the nightmare I’m now likely to have, either.”

Captain Veni smiled and said, “Nor would I want such a thing; but be it the barge or the river or the serpent, I hope none take it in mind to do other than behave, and we’ll reach Rivers End without incident to the contrary.-Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do believe the scow needs another nudge.”

Captain Veni stepped to the stern and gave his bosun orders, and soon the ship had circled to the opposite side of the barge and gave it a slight push.

Moments later, the captain and the bosun were laughing and looking in the direction of the Warrows.

“See, Pip, I knew the captain was just making fun. There’s no such thing as the river serpent.”

“I don’t know, Bink. He seemed quite serious.”

“Argh!” growled Binkton. “You’ll believe anything.”

“Maybe it just shows I have a more vivid imagination than you, Bink.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I have a vivid imagination, too,” protested Binkton.

“Then why don’t you think that it’s possible there’s a river serpent?”

“Because, Pip. .”

The buccen continued squabbling as the mighty Argon slowly flowed southerly. Tall, stately trees lined the shores, and small boats at anchor bobbed here and there, the fishermen within watching their red-painted corks afloat. Now and again a dwelling could be seen beyond the tree line, usually upon high ground to avoid a calamity in flood season. Occasionally, the Otter drifted between high bluffs, but mostly the land beyond the shores was one of rolling hills or rising plains. Intermittently and far to the west, they could just see the crown of one of the Red Hills, just one of the many among which Raudholl lay, and both Pipper and Binkton wondered what Brekka and Anvar and DelfLord Dalek might be doing, and they fell into speculation about the Chakia, this latter converse held in whispers, for the buccen were sworn to secrecy.

And the sun rose up and rode across the sky and fell toward evening. And ropes creaked and sails flapped, eased-off-all in the main, for only now and again did the ship have to get under way to give the barge a push. Both Binkton and Pipper lazed adeck throughout the idyllic drift, pausing from their leisurely chatter only to take a meal in the noontime, and another in the eve.

That night a thunderous rain hammered the Otter , but the storm blew up no violent wind, and so the barque maintained the barge well out in midstream.

Also that night, Binkton discovered that if instead of lying all tensed up he simply relaxed, the hammock wasn’t difficult to sleep in after all. Even so, mounting and dismounting remained a challenge for him. Pipper, on the other hand, simply hopped in and out as if it were just another bed.

The next morning dawned to high-blue autumnal skies and fresh-washed air, and the day was much like the previous one except no longer could the buccen see the crown of one of the Red Hills. Instead, beyond the river border trees, to the west lay the plains of Jugo, and to the east those of Pellar.

Once again, all day they drifted, though Pipper asked Captain Veni if he could climb to the crow’s nest and take a gander about. “Be of care, wee one,” said Veni. “I wouldn’t like you to fall splat on my deck.” Veni burst into laughter and added, “We’d be candlemarks swabbing.”

“Not to worry,” said Pipper, and he scrambled up the ratline as if he had been a lookout all his life. Binkton followed Pipper at a careful and measured pace.

“Hoy, you can see for leagues up here,” Pipper called down to Binkton, only to discover his cousin nearly at his feet.

Binkton clambered up and into the nest, and then took a long look about. “You’re right, Pip. Leagues.”

“Let me know if you spot the river serpent,” Captain Veni called up. “We’d like to avoid him if we can.”

“Oh, lor, I had forgotten all about the river serpent,” said Pip, and he faced forward to peer downstream.

Binkton snorted. “River serpent. Pah!”

Much of the day the buccen spent in the crow’s nest. Pipper’s vigilance slowly waned, and soon he was slumped down and leaning forward against one of the rails, though he continued to chatter with Binkton about this and that.

That evening found the Warrows down on deck and playing tokko with members of the crew. One of the yeomen, Pick by name, was particularly good at the game, and he often captured the throne.

It was just after dawn of the third day on the river, when Pipper and Binkton, back in the crow’s nest, espied in the distance to the east in Pellar a number of King’s men in red and gold tabards galloping in pursuit of a band of riders, all the horses kicking up dust in their wake. Up and over rolling hills they rode and then down out of sight into the swales beyond, only to reappear topping the next crest to disappear in the following dip.

“Huh,” grunted Binkton. “I wonder what that’s all about.”

“Maybe they’re smugglers. Maybe bandits. Maybe they’ve captured the King’s children. Maybe they’re really Rucks and Hloks, now that the Ban is no more.”

“Nah,” said Binkton, “not Rucks and Hloks. They only do their misdeeds at night.”

“Yeah, but what if they got rousted out and had to run?”

“Well, they wouldn’t be on horses,” said Bink, “ ’cause Rucks and such eat horses.”

“Oh, right,” said Pipper. “Well, then, maybe they are jewel thieves, or Rovers of Kistan, or Chabbain or Hyrinian or even Fists of Rakka. Maybe they are. .”

Pipper kept babbling, naming possibility after possibility, Binkton now and again snorting at some of the wild conjectures his cousin put forth. And he burst out laughing at Pipper’s suggestion it could be that the King’s men were after wild, blue-eyed, fair-haired women of the north to capture them as brides.

As Pipper continued rattling on, of a sudden Binkton sat up straight and stared at the water just ahead. “I-I don’t believe it.”

“Don’t believe what?” asked Pipper.

Binkton pointed, and Pipper’s gaze followed Binkton’s outstretched arm.

Under the surface, it seemed, a long, dark, undulant shape slithered upstream, but perhaps it was no more than a rolling wave on the surface of the Argon reflecting light in an odd manner.

But Pipper had no doubt. “Captain Veni! Captain Veni!” he cried. “The river serpent! It’s the river serpent!”

“What?” Veni looked up at the crow’s nest.

Now Binkton, yet pointing, shouted, “The river serpent!”

“The river serpent?”

“Yes! Yes! That’s what I said!”

“Where away?”

“Ahead and to the right.”

“All hands starboard!” shouted the captain. “Gaffs and spears!”

The crew snatched up lances and long poles with iron hooks on the end. They rushed to the starboard rail, getting there just as a heave in the water coursed alongside, rolling the barque to port. And then it was gone, the shape diving deeper, or perhaps the strange rolling wave simply faded to nought. Neither buccan could be certain as to what it might have been, though Pipper maintained the rest of the day that it really was the river serpent, yet Binkton was not at all sure.

“I never heard of him being this far upstream,” said Captain Veni at dinner that eve. “His usual haunts be around the Upper Isles, and we won’t get there till nigh sunrise.”

With a look of triumph on his face, Pipper smiled at Binkton as if to say, See, I told you , but Binkton merely shrugged noncommittally.

In the marks of the following dawn they passed the Upper Isles without incident, the dozen or so sheer-sided stone upjuts lying in midstream, two of them more than three miles in length and covered in tall grass and trees.

And just before dawn the next morn they passed the Lower Isles, also without incident, this group smaller than the other, though one was a mile or so long.

When the sun was well into the sky, “This is the day we reach Rivers End,” said Binkton, “where we’ll find the rat eaters who took our chest and, as Brekka said, deal out swift and sure justice to these worse-than-Rucks foul folk.”

“Um, Bink, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your bow and arrows are in the chest, along with my sling and bullets.”

“Well, then, Pip, we’ll just have to get new ones in Rivers End, now, won’t we?”

“Right. But shouldn’t we find a town constable or the captain of the city watch or a King’s man or someone to enforce the law?”

Captain Veni had just come within earshot, and he laughed. “Law? In Rivers End? I’m not certain there is any. Or rather, what law there is, well, it’s in the pockets of those who run the city.”

Even as he said those words, a barque hove into view downstream, and Captain Veni stepped to port and waited. As the ship passed, he called out something in a language neither Warrow knew and was answered in kind. The ship sailed on upriver, while the Otter continued down.

The captain turned to the buccen. “It was my brother, captain of the Red Carp .”

“The Red Carp !” blurted Pipper. “That was the ship tending the barge bearing our stolen chest.”

“You had a chest that was stolen?”

“By rat-eating Rivermen,” growled Binkton.

“We were hoping to ask the captain of the Red Carp what happened to our case,” said Pipper.

Captain Veni sighed. “I’m sorry, wee ones. Had I but known, I could have asked. Yet perhaps someone at Barge Bottom will know.-Oh, and if I be you I be not disparaging Rivermen, for there be a lot of them in Rivers End. They run the city.”

Binkton looked at Pipper and said, “Then is it any wonder there’s no law in that town?”

The Argon spread wide and slowed, and the barque and its barge came into estuarial waters filled with reed-infested low isles. Cyprus and cat-tails lined the water, and mangroves grew in dense thickets along the tidal shores, for they were in the grasp of the river delta, drawing ever nearer to where the Argon flowed into the Avagon Sea.

Here the captain and crew were most busy, herding the barge through shallow, fenny waters, the maneuvering room restricted. But at last ahead and to the right a long strip of cleared land came into view, and farther downstream the Warrows could see the near edges of Rivers End, its buildings marching away beyond sight.

“Lor, Bink,” said Pipper, “I thought Argon Ferry Town was big, but this makes that look like a hamlet.”

The barque maneuvered to the port side of the barge and began nudging it toward the shore. Pipper and Binkton could see workers dismantling other scows, now empty of their cargoes, salvaging the wood for other uses, and so the buccen reasoned the cleared strip of land must be Barge Bottom.

At last the Otter managed to shove the scow into the shallows, where it ground to a halt against the shoals. Men laid boarding planks from shore to barge, and secured the craft by hawsers to pile-driven posts on land.

The Otter then docked at one of the downstream piers.

Captain Veni met with the pier master and asked about a chest painted with flames and two men named Tark and Queeker; had he seen or heard of it or them?

The pier master shook his head and sent a lad running to ask the work crews if they had seen or heard ought of the trunk, or of a burly man named Tark and a skinny one named Queeker.

A half-candlemark later the lad returned and said as far as he could discover no one knew of the flame-painted chest or the men.

Sighing in disappointment, the Warrows then took up their duffle. They thanked Captain Veni and said their good-byes to the crew, and then they set foot ashore and began trekking the mile or so along the reed-bordered, log-paved riverbank road that led to the city of Rivers End.