Deltora Quest #7: The Valley of the Lost (2 page)

L
ate in the morning Barda woke and Lief took his turn to sleep. He opened his eyes in mid-afternoon to find the sky leaden and the earth breathless. His head ached dully as he sat up. His sleep had been heavy, his dreams confused and disturbing.

Barda and Jasmine were strapping up their packs.

“We think we should move on, Lief, as soon as you are ready,” said Barda. “It is almost as dark as night as it is, and if we wait for true darkness we will cover little distance before the rain sets in.”

“The other village we saw on our way down to the coast cannot be far away,” Jasmine added, turning away to peer through the bushes to the land beyond. “If we reach it before nightfall we may be able to persuade someone to row us across the river.”

Lief felt a spurt of anger. They had been talking while he slept, making plans without him. No doubt
they had been impatiently waiting for him to wake, thinking he was a sleepyhead. Did they not know how tired he was? He had slept for hours, yet he was still very weary — so weary that he felt a week of sleep would not satisfy him.

Almost at once, he realized that his annoyance was a result of that very tiredness. He looked at Jasmine’s heavy eyes, and the deep, grey lines on Barda’s face. They were as exhausted as he was. He forced a smile, nodded, and began pulling together his own belongings.

By the time they reached the next village, it was even darker, but night had not yet fallen. The companions moved cautiously through the open gate in the wall.

The place was a ruin. Everything not made of stone had been burned to cinders. The familiar names “Finn,” “Nak,” and “Milne” were scrawled on the walls left standing.

“They wrote their names here in triumph, thinking they were kings instead of thieving, murderous pirates,” Jasmine muttered savagely. “I am glad they died screaming.”

“And I,” said Barda, with feeling.

Lief wanted to agree. Once, it would have been easy for him to do so. But thinking of how Milne, especially, had met his terrible fate, gibbering with terror in the Maze of the Beast, somehow he could not. Revenge
did not seem sweet to him any longer. There had been too much suffering.

He turned away, and began searching the ruins. But there was nothing to find. There were no people, no animals left in this dead place. There was no shelter.

And there was no boat.

With heavy hearts, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine moved slowly on.

The rain began at midnight. At first it pelted down, stinging their hands and faces. Then it settled into a steady stream that soaked them through and chilled them to the bone. Kree hunched miserably on Jasmine’s shoulder. Filli, bedraggled, hid his head inside her jacket.

They plodded through mud and darkness, trying to keep alert, watching for anything that would help them cross the river. But there were no trees — only low bushes. There were no logs or planks washed up on the shore. Nothing they passed could be used to make a raft.

At dawn they rested fitfully, finding what shelter they could under dripping leaves. But after a few hours the ground on which they lay began to run with water. They staggered up, and began to tramp again.

And so the time went on. By the beginning of the third night of rain, they had stopped looking for a way across the river, now swollen and overflowing its banks. The rain screened their view of the other side, even by day, but Lief and Barda knew that by now they must be
opposite the great reed beds that had stopped their progress on the way downstream. It would be no use crossing here, even if they could find something to carry them. They knew, from bitter experience, what it was like to flounder through that oozing mud.

“Is this fiendish river forever to bar our way?” Jasmine groaned, as they stopped to rest once more. “And will this rain never stop?”

“If we can keep going a little longer, we will be opposite the place where Broad River joins the Tor,” Barda said. “I know that there are trees there, at least. We can make a shelter, and rest until the rain stops. We might even keep a fire going.”

On they walked, in a dream of wet, cold darkness. Then, after what seemed a very long time, Jasmine abruptly stopped.

“What is it?” Lief whispered.

Jasmine’s wet hand clutched his sleeve. “Sshh! Listen!”

Lief frowned, trying to concentrate. At first, all he could hear was the pounding of the rain and the rushing of the swollen river. Then voices came to him. Rough, angry voices. Shouting.

The companions moved slowly forward. Then, not far ahead, they saw a winking light. They had not seen it before because it was masked by trees.

Trees! Lief realized that they had at last reached the shelter they had been seeking. But others had reached it before them. The light was a lantern hung from a branch.
It flickered as dark figures moved around it, blocking it now and again from view.

The voices grew louder.

“I tell you, we must go back!” a man roared. “The more I think of it, the more I am sure. We should not have agreed to leave Nak and Finn alone with the booty. How do we know they will still be there when we return?”

Lief shook his head. Was he imagining things? Had he heard the man say “Nak” and “Finn”? Could the figures in the grove of trees be the pirates who had set sail to take Dain up the river to the Grey Guards? But what were they doing here? He had thought they would be far upstream by now.

“Nak and Finn will be waiting for us, all right, Gren,” growled another of the pirates. “Whatever they say, they will want their share of the gold we get for that puny Resistance wretch on the ship.”

They were talking about Dain! Lief strained to see beyond the trees to the river, and thought he caught a glimpse of the pale, furled sails of the pirate boat. The boat must be at anchor quite near to the shore. And Dain was on it!

“You are a trusting fool, Rabin!” shouted the man called Gren. “If I am right, Nak and Finn have more than a handful of gold to think about! Why else would they have let us come upriver alone? Do you really believe they are afraid of this man Doom? What is he but a Resistance wretch like the other?”

“They must have stopped when the rain set in,” whispered Barda. “Perhaps the river began running too swiftly for them to move against the current. They came ashore, for shelter.”

“Then a rowing boat must be here, on the riverbank,” Jasmine breathed.

“Nak and Finn would not betray us!” a woman shrieked angrily. “You are a traitor yourself to say it, Gren. Beware! Remember what happened to Milne.”

Other voices murmured angrily.

“Do not threaten me, you hag!” snarled the man. “Where is your own memory? Do you not remember one of the prisoners in the cavern telling us that Finn had secretly found a great gem? What if it is true?”

“A gem found in the Maze of the Beast?” jeered Rabin. “Oh, yes, that is very likely, I am sure! Are you weak in the head, Gren, that you could believe such fairy tales?”

“Shut your ugly mouth, Rabin!” Gren’s voice was thick with rage.

“Shut your own, you fat fool!”

There was a roar, a sudden, violent movement, and a groan of agony.

“Oh, you devil!” screamed the woman.

Something crashed against the lantern. The light swung wildly and went out.

“Keep off!” Gren roared. “Why, you —”

“Take your hands off her!” several other voices shouted furiously.

Then, suddenly, the grove seemed to explode with sound as the rest of the crew joined the fight. Over the beating of the rain rose shouts and grunts, the clashing of steel, the breaking of branches, thumps and shrieks.

“To the river!” Barda muttered. “Quickly!”

T
he boat, filled ankle-deep with rainwater, was bobbing at the river’s edge. No doubt it had been pulled onto dry land when the last of the pirates came ashore. But the river had risen since, and set it afloat. If it had not been tied to a tree, it would have drifted away.

It took a matter of moments for Barda to untie the rope while his companions crawled into the boat, Kree fluttering after them. By the time the big man clambered to the oars, they were already beginning to move into deeper water.

Shouts and screams from the trees still pierced the drumming of the rain. Not far away, the pirate ship strained at anchor. Two portholes in its side glowed like eyes. Lief had not noticed that before. Frantically scooping water from the bottom of the boat, he peered at the ship’s deck, looking for a sign of movement.

Meanwhile, Barda was struggling with the oars. But he was not expert at the task, and the swollen waters of the river surged around the boat, fighting his every movement, pushing them downstream.

“The current is too strong for me! I do not know if I can get to the ship,” he roared, shaking his wet hair from his brow.

“You must!” Jasmine cried. And only then did Lief realize how desperately she wanted Dain to be saved. She had said nothing before, appearing to accept the boy’s loss with the calm she always showed in the face of disaster. But now that Dain was so near, she could not face the thought of leaving him behind.

Gritting his teeth, Lief threw down the pail and crawled to the rower’s bench. “Make way!” he shouted, and squeezed himself down beside Barda, seizing an oar. He had never rowed before, but he had seen the pirates do it only days ago. He thought he could copy what they had done. Together he and Barda bent forward, pulled back, bent and pulled again.

The extra weight upon the oars began to take effect. Slowly, painfully, the boat drew nearer to the pirate ship. Then there was a shout. A shout, not from the shore, but from the ship itself.

Lief glanced around. A figure was standing on the deck, waving frantically. It was Dain. A smaller figure capered by his side, a lantern swinging wildly in its hand. Lief realized that it was the odd little thieving creature Dain had called a polypan. The pirates must
have left it onboard with Dain. And somehow he had persuaded it to set him free.

Dain had lifted a coil of rope attached by one end to the boat’s deck. He began swinging it, as if he was about to throw.

“Here!” exclaimed Jasmine. She staggered to her feet, holding out her hands. The boat rocked dangerously.

“Sit down!” roared Barda. “You will have us over! Lief, row!”

Then Jasmine gave a cry, Kree screeched, and the boat jerked and rolled. Lief glanced again over his shoulder. The dark shape of the pirate ship, its glowing porthole eyes staring, loomed very near.

Dain had thrown the rope, and Jasmine had caught it. The slender line stretched tightly between the two rocking craft. It seemed that surely it must snap, but though it creaked and thinned, it did not break.

“I cannot hold it!” Jasmine shouted. Already she was leaning perilously over the bow, water foaming just below her head. Filli was chattering with fear on her shoulder, unable to help, terrified of falling. Kree fluttered beside them, screeching in panic.

Barda dropped his oar and scrambled towards them. He took the weight of the rope in his own powerful hands and heaved. The boat lurched and wallowed in the swell. Lief grasped both oars and did his best to fight the current alone.

“Go back, Dain!” he heard Barda shout. “We will come aboard!” Again Lief risked turning to look. Dain, with the polypan close behind him, was climbing frantically down a rope ladder that hung from the ship’s side directly between the shining porthole eyes. The polypan still held the lantern. It looked like a third eye, an eye that flickered and swung.

But — Lief squinted through the rain — the other two eyes were flickering as well. And surely they were brighter, far brighter, than they had been before.

“Dain!” Barda roared furiously. “Dain! This boat is too small. We cannot —”

Dain must have heard, but took no notice. He turned and made ready to jump, clinging to the ladder with one hand. His hair was streaming with water, plastered to his head. His face, gleaming in the lamplight, was desperate. Above him the polypan gibbered and swung, shaking the ladder in panic.

Then Lief smelled smoke, and understood.

“Fire!” he shouted.

As the word left his mouth there was a roar from somewhere in the ship’s belly. The portholes shattered and jets of flame belched from them. Great cracks opened in the ship’s side, and the gaps were filled with raging fire. The rain hissed and steamed as it hit the burning wood.

Dain and the polypan leaped together, crashing down into the rowboat. It tilted sideways, a great wave
of water surging over the side, throwing Lief backwards, tearing the oars from his hands.

The boat righted itself again. It wallowed in the swell, rapidly drifting sideways, weighed down by two extra passengers and the water that swirled inside it. Stunned by his fall, Dain lay slumped against a seat as Jasmine bailed frantically and Lief and Barda scrambled for the oars. The polypan screamed, clinging to the point of the bow. It knew boats. It knew all too well what could happen to this one.

Cries of rage rose from the riverbank. The pirates had heard the noise, discovered the loss of the boat and seen the fire. Lief, grimly trying to keep the boat steady, saw their shadows leaping in the glow of the lantern they had lit once more. But that tiny glow was nothing compared to the inferno that the ship had become.

It seemed incredible that fire could rage while rain poured from above and angry water rushed below. But the fire had started below the deck, and roared out of control through the stores.

“It was the polypan!” Dain shouted, pulling himself upright. “It threw a lantern into the cabin under the deck where the oil, grease, and paint are stored. The rain and the pirates’ beatings have driven it mad!”

As has its longing for the brown gum it loves to chew, perhaps, thought Lief, staring at the screeching,
long-armed figure clinging to the bow. Ah, how it must wish it had never left the
River Queen
.

“We must get away from the ship!” Barda roared over the rain. “If it begins to sink it will pull us down with it!”

He and Lief bent again to the oars. But their clumsy efforts were of little use. Nothing seemed to stop that perilous sideways drift. As fast as Jasmine bailed, more water splashed over the side.

The polypan shrieked, its eyes glazed with terror. Then, without any warning, it suddenly sprang from its place at the bow and leaped for Lief and Barda, thrusting them aside and seizing the oars itself.

Cursing, Barda lunged for it.

“No!” shouted Lief. “Leave it! It can row far better than we can. It can save us all!”

With two deft sweeps of the oars, the polypan turned the boat. Then, back bending, powerful arms bulging, it began to row. And as if the boat recognized that at last it was in the hands of an expert, it began to cut through the swell like a knife through warm butter. In moments it had pulled clear of the burning ship and was heading straight across the river.

Jasmine continued to bail and as the water slowly disappeared from the bottom of the boat their speed increased. Soon the burning ship was far behind them. They knew that ahead was the broad, straight water of Broad River, and the bridge that arched over it. Ahead,
too, was the sad village of Where Waters Meet, and the little jetty that bore the
River Queen
sign.

Filli chattered excitedly, snuffling the air.

“We are very close!” Jasmine exclaimed. “We are almost at the bank!”

The polypan turned, baring its brown, chattering teeth. Its arms did not stop their work for a moment, but its eyes seemed to burn as they searched the darkness.

Water swirled around them as the swollen waters of the two rivers mingled. The boat raced forward. It is like cutting through a whirlpool, Lief thought, gripping his seat. If the polypan was not rowing, we would never survive this.

But the next moment, the polypan was not rowing. It had jumped from its place, abandoning the oars. It was springing to the bow and leaping past Jasmine and Dain — out and away into the darkness.

There was a thump, and the sound of running feet.

“The jetty!” Jasmine screamed.

Wildly she leaned from the boat, snatching at the piers of the old jetty, at the pole that supported the
River Queen
sign. But the raging water snatched the boat away before she could take hold. Then the boat was being swept down the river, spinning, spinning. One of the dragging oars dug deep into the water, pulled free, toppled into the swirling tide and was lost.

Barda lunged for the other, but reached it too late. Before he could grasp it, it had followed its fellow.

Then the companions could do nothing — nothing but cling to the sides of their lurching craft, as the treacherous waters swept them away.