Chapter 8

The first significant threat of danger came a few days later, on their fifth day of the voyage, as the crew was putting out the dinner campfire, and nearly everyone was preparing their bedrolls along the shore. Knowing that he was unlikely to get any sleep, yet once again, Rowan volunteered to take the first camp watch, to stay up until the moon was in the center of the night sky. One of the crewmen, Tashyl, was taking his turn to hold a similar watch onboard the boat, in case trouble came from the river or something attempted to cut the boat loose from its anchor, allowing it to drift away and thus maroon the crew.

Nearly from the start of the watch, Rowan thought he could hear slight movements and rustling in the trees and bushes that didn't quite follow or match the gusts of the wind. It had rained earlier in the morning, but dark clouds still mostly obscured the moon, and hinted at more rain later that night or sometime early the next day. With one hand kept ready at his sword, he kept a constant watch for the next hour, until he was certain that something was indeed amiss. He was walking over to Boyle to nudge him awake, when something in his mind cried out alarm and he drew his sword and ducked his head, just in time to avoid a short spear that had been thrown from out of the darkness straight at his throat.

"Alarm!" He cried out, and, nearly at once, his sword burst into bright flame, illuminating the entire camp quite brightly enough, so that he could clearly see the group of Goblins that was now racing into the camp, armed mostly with short flint tipped spears or poor daggers and short swords. While Goblins were said to be a rather clever race, they were at best but average weapon smiths, and they didn't normally have the will or patience to mine coal and gather bog iron or dig ore, for working a forge, except to arm their leaders, or to trade weapons for food or coin with the Boar-Men. Some of the younger night-goers might only be armed with a sharpened stick, which had been hardened in a fire. Their weapons might be poor, but deadly enough, if their prey had been caught completely by ambush, totally unaware.

Individually, Goblins could be occasionally quite brave and daring, but as a group or in a war-party, they tended to fight cautiously and extremely conservatively, taking few, if any, risks. They often fled to safety once any loot had been taken, or if their resistance was greater than expected. Tonight, with their prey alerted nearly at once, and each human now well-armed with good weapons at hand, and forwarned just before the first sneak attacks could be successful, the raid-leader paused, wondering whether or not to sound an immediate retreat. As the fighting started, he could tell at once that this particular attack had been a mistake, and he and his personal bodyguard melted off into the woods, leaving most of his band of forty goblins to their own fate. Most of the rest quickly as well decided to flee as well, to fight another day, but others never got that opportunity.

Rowan's flaming sword cut the band of small, waist height attackers down in rows, like ripe wheat before a scythe. In just moments, he had slaughtered nearly a dozen of the tiny foe, before the rest fled away from him in abject terror. The guardsman and the armed crewmembers each had lesser but similar sorts of success, each killing a few more each, of the early doomed first wave of attackers.

Less than a minute after the attack had begun, the clearing was empty of live goblins, and a full two dozen of the night-folk lay dead on the ground. None of the fallen contained anything of any value or interest, and the dead were quickly and quietly consigned to the river for burial. The fish and alligators would feed well upon the unfortunate nihtgenga, and Rowan hoped that the survivors would spread the word that their boat was not an easy target for plundering, to the other Goblin tribes.

The fact that the Lore-Master seemed moved to obvious near tears by their death was puzzling, but Oddtus would not speak of the matter at all. Still, before each small corpse was toss into the water for burial the Foole uttered a few words of prayer in strange tongue, perhaps, as Rowan thought that it was of the night-goers.

Occasionally over the next two days, until they reached the portentous Dead Tree Junction Island, which lay nearly in the middle of the river, near the convergence of the Elm River and several other smaller ones into the Emerald, other Goblins were occasionally sighted in the gloom of the tree-line that grew nearly up to the very edge of the river. But after sighting the boat, they quickly disappeared into the shadows and never menaced The Lady Ellyn again.

Still other problems, other than night-goers, threatened this part of the river. Here near the island, at the conjunction of several small rivers and streams, the north bank was ominously near the tall foothills of the northern barrier mountains, being perhaps, at most, only a day or two of travel away. These northern mountains most certainly contained fierce tribes of Boar-Men and other monstrous creatures of fame and legend, as well. Settlements had been attempted on the north bank of the river, in this area, before, and the infamous landmark of the Dead Tree, itself, was such a place. A great huge dead tree, entirely bare of leaves or even moss, had formerly grown in the center of where a small island town had been and was a clear landmark on the river.

The town had been constructed many years ago on this fair sized island in the midst of the river, and was about similar in size to the Duke's Island near Swanford, and the river was quite wide and relatively shallow here, too. In fact, the shoreline in much of this region was pretty much fetid murky swampland, with many mangroves and cypress trees growing in the shallower parts of the river. It had been sacked and burned at least three times in the past, that Coryn, the knowledgeable Captain had heard of, and it had been left deserted for at least the last five years or so. Another nearby walled town, Silana, clung to survival and was about a day's sail past Dead Tree, at the point where a large river, the Elm, entered the Emerald.

Taking the Elm River south, upstream, was still very much a debated option for the party. This route would take the boat down to the trading town of Elmcrygh, where a good paved road could be taken for a great many leagues southeast. The Foole hoped that, once they reached the town of Silana, they could gather enough information about the local conditions and expected dangers, to make a more educated choice for their next step of the journey.

Since the danger of submerged logs was especially great here at this slower and shallower part of the river, the Captain warned, the boat now reduced its load of sails, and an additional crewman was posted forward with a long twenty-foot pole that he used to measure the river's depth as they slowly crept forward cautiously. The river seemed dangerously shallow when measured on the southern side of the river, so, with obvious and considerable discontent, the Captain gently steered the boat a bit closer to Dead Tree Island than he would have preferred. His second mate, Beryl, was much more concerned about that particular danger than her husband, and she was soon trying to convince her master that they were already too close to the island for safety. Her argument was proven entirely accurate by an arrow that bore straight through the very center of her back, and quite pierced her heart from behind. The large jagged arrowhead quite entirely emerged from the front of her chest, between her bare breasts, and killed her quite suddenly dead, even before her body slowly slumped over and struck the deck next, to the Captain's wheelhouse.

At once the crew and the boats passengers sprang into action. With a flying tackle, Boyle knocked the Lady Ayleth flat onto the deck, so that the thick four-foot high railing gave them full cover from sight, and, hopefully, from further arrow fire. Then, crawling along the deck, he wrenched open the forward cargo hold and he pushed the screaming and protesting Lady down into it, once again shutting the hatch closed, when she was safely below. Her bodyguard Lieutenant had not been especially close to her at the time, and he scowled, as another black fletched arrow just missed his head, and he ran below decks to safety. His other three guards, who had been mostly lounging around on the sides of the deck, grabbed bows and attempted to return the missile fire. The great rain of dark red-fletched arrows that fell upon them, soon drove them all to hide behind the solid deck railing for shelter, as well. Now they understood why the ship was so protected, instead of having the usual open banister railings that most ships had.

Rowan, from his usual spot near the taffrail, at the stern, had slightly better success with his own archery duel, and he kept popping in and out of cover, as he managed to fire some fairly accurate shots, which might have indeed wounded a foe or two, but his fire certainly kept other foes hiding for cover, rather than firing more volleys into the boat and its crew. Other of the crewmen, all expert archers enjoyed much better success with their own suppressing arrow fire, and the hail storm of missiles soon dwindled into a more endurable and lighter shower of irregularly fired arrows. The Captain, quite protected in his small shielded Pilot's wheelhouse, steered the best course he could, with his reduced sail load, around the island, until, a few minutes later, the ship's stern passed, finally, out of arrow range from the island.

Most of the crew was uninjured, but a couple had wounds, a few even suffered grievous ones. The worst was the nimble lass, Gaylyn, who was most exposed to arrow fire, while she was up on the watch-seat on top of the forward mast, and she was struck gravely by two arrows in her vitals and died later that evening of her wounds. The malevolent looking sergeant of the guard, Worrel, was hit twice as well, but neither the wound in his shoulder nor in his upper thigh appeared to be life threatening. Another of the guards received a slight flesh wound to his non-sword wielding arm, and he was soon bandaged and expected to make a full and swift recovery.

Of the red feathered arrows, nothing more needed to be said. These were the crafting of the Eorfleode, the Boar-Men. Generally, Oddtus mentioned to Rowan and Boyle later, after the wounded had been tended, they were, at best, only adequate archers. Also, their weapons and, especially, their armor tended to be crude and of often, rather inferior quality. If anything, their race had even less skill at the forge, than the night-going race that they terrorized, often enslaved, and frequently, cruelly commanded as auxiliaries. In numbers, and in ambush, the Boar-Men could be dangerous archers, where quantity of missile fire could make up for their lack of individual accuracy, as today's encounter had demonstrated.

This explained why the crew had not seen any other west-bound ships, since they had left Swanford. Dead Tree Island was now the home of a significant number of Boar-Men, and they were, now, well in control of the entire river trade, able to choke it off nearly entirely, from this central point.

In most land battles, the Boar-Men valued physical strength and the defeat of an enemy within arm's length, thus demonstrating the courage and bravery of the individual warrior. In battle they fought as individuals, and rarely ever ran away, even if the odds were much against them. They tended to fight bravely, but often stupidly.

As the Lore-Master remarked, 'No one has ever accused any Boarman of the crime of being a genius, or the even worse felony of showing any common sense'. Most, in fact, were little brighter than particularly dense and 'simple' children; even their leaders were selected for their individual courage, and feats of arms in single combat with rivals, rather than for any skill in actually leading a war-band. Logistical planning and preparation, the hallmark of coordinated and effective human armies, was an entirely alien concept to their culture, and distained as showing 'timidity' and 'lack of will' to aggressively face their enemies.

It was indeed a happy thing, the Lore-Master concluded, that the Boar-Men rarely ever cooperated in attacks involving more than two or three war-tribes combined together, each war-tribe usually never larger than a hundred warriors each. The idea of ever uniting all of the tribes in a region under a single mighty leader was nearly unthinkable to their culture, since each tribe would just as happily raid and attack their own brethren, as launch an assault upon human settlements that were usually further away. Only rarely had such large unifications ever occurred, always, then, under the command of a more much powerful creature or outsider, strong or powerful enough to make them fear this new leader more than they hated each other. More than anything else, the Eorfleode, the creation of the Aðbaernesa, the Goddess of Decay & Destruction and of Death & Rebirth, lived but to hate and kill; each other, their kin, and the entire world around them that they resented and could never hope to understand.

Now, away from the island in relative safety, with the danger over, for now, the crew nearly fell apart, at once, in sadness and shock. Tory, the rather impulsive first mate and the bound-consort to the fallen Beryl, alternated between grief and a great vengeful desire to return to the island, to exact his retribution for his wife's death. The Swanford lads were of a mind to agree with him, despite the fearful odds, but the Foole was watchful of their martial enthusiasm and bade them to keep to their own counsel for yet awhile, until they could reach Silana, when they could better gauge the dangers of their situation. The Lady's bodyguard, weakened already with two injuries, was certainly in no shape for further combat, nor was this their assigned duty. The Lady briefly came back atop deck, to see the aftermath of the battle for herself, and pinching her lips as tightly as they would go in her fear. Soon, once again, she retreated to the safety of her cabin, without uttering a single word to the survivors atop deck.

Even adding a bit more sail, to make some extra speed, didn't really speed the journey to the nearby river town of Silana, noticeably, and Rowan's hands were white with anger and frustration, as he clinched the edge of the stern taffrail. Boyle was up at the front, giving comfort and encouragement to the sailors, and lending a hand however he could be useful. His lady friend Brenga was especially distraught at the mortal wounding of her friend Gaylyn, and, together, hand-in-hand they went below to where she was being attended, so that they could be by her side when her spirit left for the Shadowlands.

"Rowan," Oddtus quietly said into Rowan's ear, as he placed his arm comfortingly across his broad, strong shoulders, "enough terrible things have already happened, since the start of this adventure, that it is quite worse still, when yet more tragedy strikes. I know well in my heart, too, and it never becomes any easier to understand and accept, nor perhaps should it! On the other hand, I could tell by your unease, since we have boarded this vessel that another matter equally disturbs you as well. You sit here quietly and look out behind you, always looking towards the past ... not the challenges that still lie just ahead of you!"

"Foole, it is certain that you are very wise and you try now to speak wisdom to me, but I would surrender any glory that any Duke or King could ever offer me, if I was but still an innocent young man enjoying my life in a quiet village. I did not aspire, ask, pray, or even dream for any of this! My friends are in peril; my past is now a forsaken memory and my future is increasingly likely to be a short, but memorable one. You shall have your epic song, my friend and joculator, but I doubt that it shall be a happy cheerful song, or that you shall be showered in gold marks, upon its telling."

"Danger confronts all of us, everyday and everywhere. Often, it is too dangerous to even consider arising out of bed each morning, but most of us do it anyway ... and occasionally not even come to regret it. The story shall be worth the telling — of that I am sure."