Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 7 Hungry Eyes

Floating at anchor, in a slow moving channel lined with reeds and towering mangroves; a shallow drafted, stripbuilt boat of red oak bobbed merrily on the tiny wavelets. Seated at the rudder, a young woman in bright blue pirate finery was having a conversation with herself in the late morning sunshine.

“A deep water mooring? On it captain… we’re stalking a minor monster with a local right now... Don’t worry, it’s just a frogodile, we’ll save you a drumstick.” A high, piping croak resounded across the marsh, followed by Rio’s shout of triumph. “Oh, the boys are drawing it off already! Gotta go!”

Leafchaser watched in utter confusion as two armored men, one in gleaming green light armor and the other in a strange suit of red plate mail with dark streaks suggesting wood grain, disembarked together on the shitty island.

Once ashore, the red armored man handed a long, wide bladed spear to his companion and together they vanished into the mangrove mud islet. The weird part was the music, high and sweet, with a tapping, rattling drum keeping time. The swaying melody began moments after the two armored warriors vanished among the verdure.

Amy pulled the anchor and slowly motored up the channel, whistling softly to the birds and the two vanished warrior musicians.

MissAdventure motored silently around the little island, slowing to a stop beneath the mangrove where the ragged, shivering catgirl fisher perched. “Get aboard, lady… we’ll take care of it.” It didn’t take much convincing to get the wet, muddy girl down into the boat and wrapped in a blanket.

Amy’s new friend, Leafchaser was standing at the prow, guiding her into the tangled waterways with a nervous smile on her face. The muddy river split around the funky, overgrown little island of silt and tree roots; separated from the mainland by a near impenetrable bog and dense thickets of reeking, moss shrouded swamp.

Just across a deep, slow moving channel, the tatty little beastfolk slum huddled on its own low and boggy ‘island’; connected to the town only by a narrow, muddy track unworthy of being a trail, let alone a road.

Wilf’s high, piping flute and Rio’s drum led the girls in the boat to the scene. The boys had bailed out onto the mucky little swamp isle and set out ‘overland’, while Amy motored around the far side, on her own mission.

“Stay aboard, Leafy. My brothers will handle things from here.” She called out to the blanket wrapped girl at the prow. “Don’t worry about my boys… they have this in hand.”

The two boys stood in the big, silty clearing of pickleweed, marsh grass and broomtail ferns, calling to the ravenous thing as it struggled ashore. It had so many legs, flailing and kicking in random directions and getting it nowhere, as its meal remained just out of reach, it became more furious and eager.

Mad with reckless hunger, the beastie shoved itself onto the widest mudflat it could find, thrashing two mighty tails in the water and mud to drive its bulk onto land. The music of her brothers drew the creature in irresistibly, working their will on its very primitive brain. The song whispered of catfish, trapped in a shallow pool, nests of unprotected croc eggs and a few unwary swimmers, just over there… so close.

A creature with enough… or really any free brain space might have suspected a trick, but crocodile and predatory amphibian instincts won out. Ordinarily, that would have been enough, but once it factored in HUNGRY, froggy was all in.

The monster’s enormous gator tail thrashed and churned in the mud, battering down a small mangrove and smashing a few obstructing roots, as it lurched and wriggled ashore. Knobbed and scaled with armored plates, that mighty tail was the thing’s real offensive weapon, aside from engulfing its prey.

The other tail was soft and slippery, like a tadpole of terrifying dimensions, the multitude of legs were similarly froggy, as was its gaping, toothless maw and expansive throat pouch. The beasties’ soft, pale yellow underbelly and throat remained safely tucked against the muck, as it slid their way, lost in eager and stupid hunger.

Rio let his drums dangle from their wide leather strap, once the monster was fully ashore and committed. He circled slowly and carefully, keeping his spear trained on the beast as it lined up for a rush on Wilf, whose flute continued singing a song of dinner. In its case, a wild and hectic charge brought it closer to the delicious, meaty, music man at a human walking pace…

Once the thing was irrevocably committed to its ‘charge’, the armored youth slipped his flute away somewhere unseen. With a smooth movement, he drew a long rod of blackthorn, topped with a compact, red, asymmetrical hammer head; producing it from the same mysterious place. He kept whistling his melody, as he prepared himself to receive his guest. He had his strange hammer cocked behind his shoulder, waiting to deliver a punishing blow.

The creature dug deep and managed to get a majority of his disorganized parts headed in the same direction for a moment… and actually started sliding forward a little faster. To compensate, Wilf sidled to the left, setting Rio up for his attack.

His brother’s green armor blended in with the foliage and muck well enough to deceive the idiotic beast; as it was fully engaged in a single minded pursuit of its chosen prey.

When it decided to make its big play and lurch forward to engulf the armored man, Rio was already in motion, striking at the tender junction of its jaws. The wide, heavy blade bit deep, right where thick, pebbled crocodile hide gave way to moist, froggy skin.

His cruel bladed spear jabbed deeply into its flesh, severing something important internally… The monster’s jaw snapped closed on the right side, spoiling an attempt already doomed by Wilf’s smooth and graceful dodge.

The creature thrashed wildly, trying to whip around and gobble up the tasty, elusive morsel. It hurled its croc tail at the human, sweeping low in a wide arc just missing the man, when he stepped back among the mangrove roots. Half a dozen of the dense, woody roots snapped off under its attack, as its tail whacked into a tree too big to bash aside.

Wilford slid to a stop beside the hungry monster and quickly leapt up and off of one of its many, many legs. His hobnailed boots slipped a little on the slimy mud coating its back, as he scrambled forward. In a few leaps and terrifying moments, he was astride the monster, as it spun in a tragic and pathetic circle, looking for its foe among the broken tree roots.

Firmly atop the slowly turning monster, the big youth raised his odd hammer and brought it crashing down between the behemoth’s buggy toad eyes, once, twice… On the third mighty blow, it fell still with a groaning shudder and a loud, splatting fart.

The frogodile was sprawled in the middle of the reedy, weedy clearing at the center of the squishy mound, with Rio’s spear still lodged in its jaw, when Amy and her passenger arrived on the scene.

Eight feet high, even in death’s repose, the creature looked like a small hillock or a mossy boulder, until they spotted the legs… so many legs.

Like all monsters, the frogodile would have hatched as either a frog or a croc; seeming to be a normal representative of whatever species it had been, for the first few weeks of life... Posessed by a fractional alien soul that somehow winkled its mindless way into the equally mindless host, they would have begun to slowly mutate until…

Now its warty, green skin was a strange mix of knobby croc and slimy frog. Otherwise, crocs have four legs, generally, and a tail… frogs tend to have the same basic arrangement as well. Fewer might be expected in a swamp filled with hungry jaws, but the humble and annoying frogodile went the other direction: It had at least fifteen legs, two tails and a mouth big enough to swallow anything up to a small human.

Finding something like that so close to a town was a surprise, they were a nearly immobile, non threat ambush predator; but still not the kind of thing to leave floating around where kids and pets might get gulped down. For mobility, the wretched thing would have to push itself through the water or across the mud with its two massive, meaty tails. The usual method they employed was to lurk just under the surface to gulp down unwary birds, or nestled in the mud, waiting for fish or bottom crawlers to wander by.

All those feebly twitching legs were just bait to draw in hungry nibblers; if severed, they would grow back within a day, drawing on the monstrous vitality all such creatures possessed.

That vitality was one of the defining characteristics of a monster; that, and their all consuming hunger. A monster is its hunger, ruled by it and lashed on into ravenous violence by that implacable, endless appetite.

It could theoretically have swallowed a human, but any person dumb enough to swim into swallowing range was already at risk from a variety of way more dangerous creatures. Its main prey were huge crabs, giant crayfish, small crocs, giant frogs and other mundane predators that were lurking all around.

As if to prove that point, Wilf hammered down a forty pound coconut crab that was investigating their kill, while Amy was still tying up to a mangrove root. Her brother dragged his crab up on shore and chucked the feebly struggling beast beside the bloody heap of frogodile.

“Ooo, goodie, I was hungry! This is gonna be nice…”

#

Leafchaser sat in the tidy little boat, wrapped in a warm, fluffy blanket that smelled of sunshine, spices, wood shavings, forge smoke and herbs… the scent of a comfortable home, out in the marshy bogs. She watched in silence as her new acquaintances did inexplicable things on the muddy, mucky little island they were moored on.

The big human boy in red armor walked around the little clearing in the center of the ‘island’ sticking wooden stakes into the mud at regular intervals. Very regular intervals indeed; following after him, the tall lean, dark skinned and curly haired lad used a weighted metal tube to drive his brother’s posts deeper into the silt. Without any signal she could detect, they began stringing ropes around the poles, forming a huge circle of cordage, decorated with dangling ornaments and small baubles of shell, bone, metal and knotted textiles.

Within ten minutes they had trodden a circle around the clearing, with intersecting lines of footprints originating at each post, forming a complex symbol in the dirt. An eleven pointed star slowly took shape as they worked, while ‘admiral Amy’ chattered on and on.

“Wilf and Rio are better with the monstery side of things, I handle the business end and try to stay clean…” She sang happily, as her brothers worked in the deep, ankle sucking mud. “We’re gonna make camp here for a few days, get a little work done, make some new friends and sail on to the next adventure… it’s what we do.”

“So, you own their indentures?” Leafchaser asked softly. “I thought this was no longer done… to humans?”

“Gods no! As if! They’re my brothers, sure enough… We’re Adventurers, a detachment of team Ragamuffin, out of Wheatford. Guild registered and duly sworn.” She sang happily, while tuning up a beautiful guitar of strange design.

“You call them your brothers, yet they look nothing like you and labor at your command…” She whispered, embarrassed to be prying so openly, but too curious to stop herself.

“We’re family. I’m staying clean this time, cause the boys are already muddy.” She answered with a grin. Soft, soothing notes began to float from her fingers, as her brothers began playing along from beside their circle in the muck.

As the music rose, the sound became deeper, more resonant, more pervasive. Soon, the water was dancing in wide, circular ripples from the shore of the funky little mound, as birds flocked to the trees; carrying the sweet, aimless music higher.

As Leafchaser watched in confusion and bewilderment, the goop that made up the island solidified into a patch of actual, walkable earth. Runnels of cloudy water poured from the edges of the mound, as somehow, they squeezed the soggy soil dry.

“We’re Adventurers, Leafy… we do things differently, that goes double for us. Stay on the boat for a few minutes while we get set up, please.” Amy chirped, as she hopped ashore and began a new song.

Leafchaser had little experience with actual musicians… There were a few folks in the slum with a simple drum or makeshift instrument; as well as a few people from the human commons who didn’t mind turning out a tune for the furry folks on occasion. Beyond that, the amateurish efforts of her impoverished neighbors and a local group of choral singers were her only real musical exposure.

This was something entirely unfamiliar… Where their first tune was a wandering, lighthearted melody, drifting aimlessly through the marsh; this was a steady, driving beat that took things and started them going in a definite direction. The big man in red armor began to croon in a strange, swaying way, singing inexplicable lyrics.

Oh, they say, some people long ago,

Were searching for a different tune…

One that they could croon,

As only they can…

“Wilf, really?” Amy asked gently, before joining his song with her high, clear voice. The tall slim lad thumped and rattled his small pair of conjoined drums, tapping out a crisp rhythm for the song, while adding his voice in as well, bringing in a tone both rich and sweet.

They heard the breeze in the trees,

Singing weird melodies…

And they made that the start of the blues!

“Always the old man music…” Amy sighed at the red armored lad when the song ended. Leafchaser was too perplexed and upset by the changes wrought on the silty mound to pay too much attention to the musical critique.

Misty shapes cloaked in fog and shadow began flitting about, visible only for an instant, from the corners of her eyes. They distracted the young cat woman's gaze constantly, triggering her prey instincts with irresistible, twitching and furtive movements.

Each time her eye wandered, drawn away by some subtle trick, when she looked back, the place had changed. Suddenly, there was grass and a graveled path, leading to a small stone outcrop. A small spring gushed hot water from somewhere deep in the earth, filling a stone bathing pool. Fragrant steam drifted through the bamboo grove that sprang up a moment later, surrounding the hot, green tinged pool.

Then a tall river stone foundation appeared in a twinkle, followed by a small grove of fruit trees and a garden. As her gaze skipped from one mystery to another, more wonders and changes continued to manifest. Things finally settled down, when a red tile roof appeared; in a moment when she was wondering how a long bamboo and plank pier had come into being behind her.

“Is this an… inn?” She whispered in the silence at the end of their song.

“Uhhh… no?” The big man in red mumbled from behind his all concealing armored mask.

“We aren’t an inn, think of it as a private club…” The handsome man in green said happily, his smile had a physical impact… even for a human, his teeth were big and extraordinarily white. “I’m Rio, that’s Wilf… go on inside, get changed, have a bath. We have work to do on mister frog here.”

“Auntie Ranza, we’re set up on a mangrove island in the river mouth…” The girl in blue spoke aloud to no one at all, while winking cheerfully at the confused catgirl.

Amy already had Leafchaser by the hand and was drawing her towards the door, even while the handsome young man was still speaking to her.

“Come on, we don’t wanna watch what they get up to… boys are gross.” The girl chattered, while dragging her into the comfortable little house. “We’re pretty close in size, I have some things you can wear, Wilf is a pretty good tailor…”

#

Wilf and Rio were muddy, bloody and tired when they stumbled to the bath, where the girls were way ahead of them. Leafy and Amy were wrapped in robes and headed inside, chattering away thick as thieves when the two brothers sank into the pool with exhausted sighs.

“I wanna ask around before I try tanning that croc hide… it looks pretty special.” Wilf mumbled sleepily. “With the belly, I was thinking about making a kayak. Frog bone ribs and stretchers would make it light… and maybe even foldable.”

“You really are crazy.” Rio muttered before diving under the surface.

“Yeah, well it runs in the family.” He grumbled back with a smile, knowing Rio heard him clearly, even under the surface. The pool’s contents were not exactly ‘water’ in the sense of being real, or anything. Like the rest of the house and grounds, it was a complex illusion, manifesting physical matter through complex magical trickery and occult forces.

The two young men ambled into the spacious main room a few minutes later, freshly scrubbed and wearing well fitted common clothes. They sank down at the long table with grateful smiles, as their sister danced over with tea and sandwiches.

“Auntie Ranza should be done trading soon and we can expect her to moor up before evening. I’m gonna ferry Leafy home, while you guys eat.” She took her new friend by the hand again and headed outside with her.

“I’m not trying to rush you away or anything… but your broken canoe went floating downstream. We don’t want to cause any worry.” She sang cheerily from the tiller of her little boat. “We have a bit more work to do, but please, join us for dinner and bring a friend! I’ll come by and pick you up when the rest of our family gets here.”

The mystified young cat woman was standing on the simple bamboo and plank pier, being stared at by her neighbors, before she had a chance to realize she was home.

“That was crazy...” She whispered to herself, as the smiling, mysterious pirate girl sailed her tiny boat back across a few dozen yards of dark, silty water, to her house among the mangroves.

But for the pier sticking out into the estuary, she would have begun to doubt her own senses.

She watched her new friend, Amy tie up and skip down the dock, until she vanished into the dense trees. Music once more erupted a few minutes later, rising into the early afternoon sky from the uninhabitable muck mound just across the channel. A high, piping song that seemed to go on and on.

#

As afternoon settled in, the music stopped. Only a tall column of steam and the long, sturdy pier showed that the little island was now occupied. A number of the beastkin in the soggy slum nearby found the doings on the unnamed little boggy mound endlessly fascinating; though anyone who tried to sail over and snoop, swiftly discovered that was not so easy as it might seem.

A horrifying swarm of skeeters, midges, biting flies, gnats and other flying vermin swirled in clouds around the perimeter. They descended on any who ventured too close in a hungry, buzzing mass and attacked with startling ferocity.

Seamas the beekeeper even tried wearing his semi protective homemade suit of patched together leather scraps and sailcloth. The filth squirmed and swarmed through every gap, sending him home with his tail tucked between his legs... mostly to keep from getting bit anywhere tender.

Somehow, the little slum became entirely vermin free… It was as though every biting, nibbling wretch in the area found the tiny island camp irresistible. Yet the three young people were seen moving around the island’s edge frequently.

The big blonde man set a number of fish traps in the water, tethered to colorful buoys among the mangrove roots. The tall man in green clambered up in the trees, doing inscrutable things, while the girl in blue tinkered with their little boat in the sunshine.

An hour before sundown, a tall, three masted trade ship slid silently up the channel and moored on the long pier, passing through the swarming bugs without trouble.

“Must have some of those bug charms…” Jeskin grumbled wistfully, sitting beside Leafchaser on the village dock. The burly dogman pulled her closer to lean on his shoulder with a huff of canine satisfaction.

“I was so worried when Skeets spotted your canoe floating away…” He mumbled while watching the big ship moor. “I owe them a debt I can’t repay…”

“Don’t be dramatic… I’m fine. ‘Diles drift down from the inlands sometimes, you know crocs are way more dangerous and they’re all around.” She gave him a playful shove and smiled when he rocked back over against her gently.

“That’s Esperanza’s Bounty!” He whispered urgently when he recognized the ship, a moment later. “They’re a big name in the shipping business… Luxury goods and more… What are they doing here?”

“We might just find out.” She purred, pointing to the small boat slipping their way across the water.

#