Anselmo groaned and lifted his boot to inspect the extent of the damage. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but he was still disgusted. He groped around and located an oar stored under the gunwale and began to scrape the horse manure off the bottom of his boot, dumping it over the side of the barge into the murky water.
Croak, croak, croak!
Rado looked away as Anselmo glared at him. Tavin was doing his best to conceal his smile behind his hand, but it wasn’t doing him much good.
The only thing worse than traveling on horseback is traveling on a barge with horses, Anselmo thought to himself. There was nothing for it though, they were over a league into the swamp from where they’d left the main channel, so he couldn’t get out and walk if he wanted to.
“Try dipping the sole into the water, it should wash off easily enough,” Grimsby told him from his perch on top of the barge’s cabin trunk, legs splayed out in front of him. Anselmo looked up in time to see the leader of their expedition tuck what looked like a bird skull into his pocket. Porkchop grunted and headbutted Grimsby in the shoulder until he scratched behind her ears.
“Horses are bad enough when you’re riding them, but sharing a boat with them is intolerable,” Anselmo grumbled.
“Don’t much care for it m’self,” Tavin agreed, “an’ boats ain’t too great to begin with, either.”
“Have you boys been carrying on like this all the way from Stanhope?” asked Sharp Annie, leaning into the sculling oar. “You’ll put young Rado here off traveling for good with all your bellyaching!”
Rado let out another croaking laugh. “I’m not from Stanhope, I’ve done my share of traveling before,” he told her.
“Oh, my apologies, love,” she replied, “I shouldn’t have assumed. When I was your age, I’d never been anywhere.”
“They hadn’t discovered anywhere to go yet,” Fletcher said as he pushed off a snag with the boat pole.
Annie shot him a glare, then turned back to Rado. “Where are you from, dearie, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I was born and raised in Winam,” the corvidian told her.
“Oh, down in the southern wine country! I keep telling myself I’ll move down there some day, and get away from the winters we have here. What was it like?” she asked.
“I’m sure some people find it enjoyable, but I lived with my father, who is a self-centered drunk,” Rado said. “After our last fight, I marched down to the docks and signed on to the first vessel that would have me. I was at sea before the sun went down, and I’ve never been back.”
"Fathers fighting with their sons," Annie shook her head, "it's a tale as old as time."
Fletcher nodded. "Not a man until you can knock out your old man," he said, with the gravitas some people give to scripture or philosophy.
Rado continuted, “I spent a few months as a deckhand, until I got off at Osaz. I spent about a year on barges like this going between Osaz and Spillway, or from Timberport to Stanhope, wherever I could find the work.”
“Why’d you decide to stop in Stanhope, darling?” Annie asked.
“Well...,” Rado looked a bit embarrassed, or as embarrassed as he could look without being able to blush through his black plumage.
“I’d wager it had somethin’ ta do with that letter he asked me to send fer him while I was in town,” Tavin remarked, a sly grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, “It was fer a ‘Philomena’, if I recall correctly...”
There was a chorus of “Ohhhh,” at that, and Sharp Annie gave the young corvidian a knowing smile.
“She wouldn’t see me if I was always going to be away on the river somewhere,” Rado admitted, “so I found myself work in town.”
“You should have said something before, I’d have sent you with Tavin and you could have gotten her a gift from Spillway,” Grimsby said. “Now that I think about it, I should have had him grab something for Em and Nat.”
Anselmo smirked to himself; he’d been thinking ahead and had given Tavin a few bits for a notebook and some fine charcoal sticks. He’d learned his lesson though, there would be no further sketches of Cruelty. He glanced toward the bow of the barge, where the ill-tempered brute stood by himself, the other horses doing their best to keep their distance. The beast had been better behaved on the little vessel than Anselmo would have guessed, but Grimsby kept a close eye on it. Though at this point, the only ones on board who hadn’t long since learned to stay away from the mean-spirited stallion were Fletcher and Sharp Annie, and they’d figured it out quickly enough.
Still, there was something strange about the horse and its rider, beyond it being a wicked, malevolent, vindictive ball of spite. Anselmo shook his head. Usually he had no problem ignoring things that weren’t any of his business, but out here he didn’t have any of his usual distractions to take his mind off of things, and the questions just kept coming back. Why had he had that dream? Why did the horse act so strange? Just who in Malgero’s name was Nantier Grimsby?
Anselmo looked at the sole of his boot, which was now wet, but mercifully free of horse manure. He shoveled the rest of it overboard with the oar, stowed it, and found a seat a safe distance from the horses, where he could sketch and watch the scenery float by.
“This is the place,” Fletcher said, a touch of apprehension in his voice.
Grimsby glanced around, then nodded at a pair of trees. “That’s where it came from?” Fletcher nodded affirmatively.
“Rado, you’re up,” Grimsby said. The corvidian stepped up onto the gunwale, then leaped onto the tree trunk, the talons on his birdlike feet digging into the bark and keeping him from sliding down into the water. He circled the trunk once, looking for anything unusual, then scrambled up into the crown. Sharp Annie swept her gaze over the area, crossbow held against her shoulder. The branches above rustled as Rado inspected the area, then climbed up a little higher before leaping from one tree to the other.
“There was something up here,” he said a moment later, “there are bits of mud and algae on some of the branches, and it broke a couple of branches climbing up right there.” He pointed at a spot below him.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Is there any other damage? Nothing carved or scratched into the trunk, or anything else it might have left behind?” Grimsby frowned thoughtfully as he asked.
“Told you true enough, didn’t we, dearie?” Annie smirked at Grimsby, “You can pay us now, if you please.”
“I don’t see anything else,” Rado called down.
“It’s strange though,” Grimsby said, pulling a small purse from a coat pocket and tossing it to Annie, “no one has ever reported a draug here before, and between your description and the algae we’ve found, it sounds like a sea-draug. The problem is we’re weeks worth of travel inland, and sea-draug were always fishermen or merchant sailors in life. I’ve never heard of a river pilot becoming a draug, but if one did, I’d expect to see him harassing people along the canal, not out here in the swamplands. Attacking people in lonely places, jumping down out of trees or off roofs? That’s more the sort of thing you see from mountain-draug, but I’ve never heard of one that could swim!”
“It’s a real conundrum,” Sharp Annie said, “but you’ve got more important things to worry about. This purse is lighter than we agreed on.”
“I told you we’d give you half when we saw the ambush site, and the rest of it when we get off the barge,” Grimsby replied.
“Now, now,” Tavin said, “I’m sure there’s no need for any unpleasantness. You’ll get paid, we’ll get the information we’re looking for, an’ everyone can keep their insides on their insides.”
Anselmo had set down his sketchbook and charcoal and was reaching for his halberd, but Annie swung around and pointed the crossbow at him.
“None of that, love,” she said.
“Ya can’t think this’s a good idea,” Tavin told her, “there’s four of us an’ two of you! The lad an’ I work for Ribaud!”
“It’s not ideal, I concede,” Annie replied, “but we lost out on a significant purse when little Dell went over the side of the boat, so we need to look for other opportunities.”
“The only opportunity you’re going to have is to meet Malgero ahead of schedule,” Anselmo growled at her. Fletcher scowled at him and pulled a knife from his belt.
“You’re a spirited one, I’ll give you that, my dear,” Sharp Annie said, “but you an’ Tavin here are the only fighters that worry me, an’ I was planning on shooting you first.” Rado gave an indignant squawk from the tree, but Grimsby just chuckled. In his peripheral vision, Anselmo saw Cruelty turn and step toward Annie, the lead that had previously secured his bridle to the bow of the barge now dangling freely beneath it.
Suddenly, an enormous shape reared up out of the water alongside the barge! Anselmo’s eyes widened in horror as a creature like a giant salamander, but with a pair of dark, ox-like horns protruding from its enormous head grabbed onto the side of the barge with a clawed foot, pulled itself up, and sunk its teeth into one of the horses.
“Hodag!” shouted Fletcher, dropping his knife and grabbing an oar, before swinging it at the beast with all his might. Sharp Annie whirled around and shot it with her crossbow, immediately lowering it to crank at the windlass and prepare another shot. Porkchop barked and growled loudly.
The pack horse screamed in terror and pain as the hodag tried to drag it over the side of the barge and into the water. The other horses bucked and screamed as they tried to run away, but there was nowhere to go. One fell overboard and nearly took Anselmo with it, but he was able to duck to the side just in time. He grabbed his halberd and thrust the point at the hodag from on top of the cabin trunk, sticking it in the side of its jaw. The monster bellowed in pain and shook its head, and Anselmo suddenly found himself sailing through the air after one of the beast’s horns caught the handle of the halberd and pulled him off balance. Still, he was determined not to face his death unarmed, and he held on to the weapon as he splashed into the swamp headfirst.
The water wasn’t warm, or easy to see in, and he spluttered and gasped after his head broke the surface. Looking around, he saw the hodag was ignoring him and still trying to grab one of the horses. A large branch, foliage still attached, fell from the tree and hit the beast near its shoulders, but it just shrugged it off. Rado shouted something angrily at it while waving a cutlass, but Anselmo didn’t make out what he said. He kicked with all his might, trying to swim around behind the barge and put it between him and the hungry creature, before it tired of trying to snatch one of the horses and looked for an easier meal. Fletcher and Tavin were both swinging oars at the beast as hard as they could, but between its horns and a row of curved spines running down its back, not all of their blows landed. It let out a roar as Sharp Annie buried another crossbow bolt in its side, but it wasn’t dissuaded from its pursuit of the animals.
Anselmo snagged the gunwale with the spur on the back side of his weapon and pulled himself up into the barge again, water dripping from his soaked clothes and squelching in his boots.
“Welcome back,” Grimsby said to him, apparently unconcerned by the whole debacle.
“Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to do something about this?!” Anselmo demanded.
“I suppose you’re right, it’ll be difficult enough getting one horse back into the boat, we certainly don’t want another one to fall overboard,” Grimsby conceded. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.
Cruelty exploded into action, making another angry noise no horse should make, then rearing up on his hind legs and striking at the hodag with his front hooves, leaving halfmoon-shaped cuts on its thick hide. Surprised at the sudden turn of events, the hodag forgot about the other horses and tried to grab Cruelty in its jaws, but the stallion whirled around and began kicking at it with his back legs. There was a loud crack as one of the kicks landed, and the hodag howled in pain and spat out a pair of sharp teeth into the barge.
With blood leaking from its mouth, the beast shoved itself backwards off the side of the vessel, back into the water, and swam away, swishing its body and long tail back and forth to propel itself, the spines running down its back protruding above the surface of the water. Cruelty made another unsettling noise that was probably akin to a roar as he watched his vanquished foe flee.
“Well, that was exciting!” Grimsby exclaimed, still sitting on the cabin top. “I’ve never seen a hodag in person!”
“You’re mad,” Fletcher panted, “that thing could have killed us!”
“What I am,” replied Grimsby, “is disappointed. I was promised a service in exchange for a prenegotiated price, a fair one in my opinion, and now you want to renegotiate under threat of arms? I don’t care for that one bit.”
Sharp Annie had the string halfway pulled back with the windlass on her crossbow, but had sat down on a crate to rest after the hodag had given up. Cruelty loomed over her, a predatory look in his eyes. She saw blood on his hooves, and the red “C”-shaped prints they’d left on the planks as he approached.
“Oh, that? That was just a little fun, darling,” she smiled, “just a harmless joke to pass the time!”
“I didn’t think it was funny. How about you, Tavin? Did you enjoy our friends’ joke?” Grimsby said coldly.
“I thought it was in poor taste,” Tavin agreed. Cruelty snapped his teeth.
“In fact, I wanted to tell you that we’d thought it over an’ decided to do the job for what you’ve already paid us!” Annie blurted desperately.
“Really? How delightful!” Grimsby’s tone shifted to a much lighter one. “It’s so nice to make new friends, don’t you think?”
“Indeed it is, darling,” Annie affirmed. She smiled widely, but the look in her eyes was still fearful.
“Let’s see to it that we all stay friendly, then, eh?” Grimsby smiled back. “Now Rado, are you going to spend the afternoon in that tree, or are you coming back down at some point?”
The young corvidian hopped down into the barge with a squawk.
They managed to haul the horse that had fallen out back into the barge with a block and tackle suspended from one of the nearby trees, then set off for the camp Dell had spent the night with the pirates at.