Deltora Quest #7: The Valley of the Lost

Late 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!”