-Callia-

  Callen and Hew wasted no time moving into the shelter of the small hut built into the center of our new ride. Larry organized the guards in our team to protect the ship while he got to work using a long pole to push us off. It was only now that I realized this ship didn’t have a rudder. Instead, it moved solely by riding the tide and using the long wooden pole that Larry pushed against the riverbed. It didn’t take long for the currents under us to take hold and begin dragging us downstream.

  “Welcome to the Great River! The shield; oh you know what? Never mind. My niece has been trying to get me to do this whole introduction thing, but she lives in the capital. Doesn’t quite understand what livin out here is like.” Larry seemed even more talkative now that we were finally moving further into the river. The middle would likely take hours or even days to reach by using his pushing pole. “Now instead of talkin all flowery about the river, I’m going to share my rules for river survival; most land folk don't quite understand the danger. There’s a reason nothing big from the far side ever crosses; it’s because the deep river fish are even bigger.”

  I had taken a spot on the roof of the cabin, and from my vantage point the town behind us quickly began to disappear from view. I turned around and looked off into the river itself and noticed something big shifting under the surface.

  “Now rule 1: Always hold on because we can’t slow the boat. If you fall off, you're fish food.” Larry continued his rambling behind me while I tried to look through the glare of the water. The movement under the water from before was gone, but a surge of water pushed us towards the shore. I grabbed on as the whole boat tipped precariously on the wave. Larry seemed unfazed as he jumped towards the side that was dipping and pushed back against the wave, freeing us from riding it into the shore.

  “Seems a big guy below is a bit restless. Don’t worry, big waves are normal. Now rule 2: for some reason the fish really like the smell of land critter blood. If you get cut, don't bleed into the river, or it'll be a big mess. You’ll draw in all sorts of little fish, and the little ones draw bigger fish. Next thing you know, one of the tide makers is sniffing for a snack. If you do bleed into the water, our only option will be to toss you over and hope you can draw away the frenzy.” I noticed our guards, who were now getting more and more apprehensive about the journey. Meanwhile, I myself can’t help but complain in my head. Why couldn’t you give the rules before we left?

  “Rule 3: Death to the fish people. A bunch of raider assholes that. . .” Before Larry finished, he yelped in surprise as something below caught his pole. In the next moment he’s ripped from the deck by the pole slamming into his chest, knocking him overboard. I jumped down to the back of the ship, but just as he had warned in rule 1, we were hopelessly separated in mere moments. A glimmer of movement in the deep preceded the water beginning to form another wave.

  “Incoming wave!” I call out as I take a moment to desperately search for anything in our storage that might substitute for the push pole. Nets, materials, buildings, and a crazy earthkin mutant. I pause a bit at that one as I realize Gramit is floating in the void, reaching out with his tentacle leg to steal food from one of the storage boxes. However, that will have to be addressed after this. Where is a long piece of wood when you need it! The wave built up, and soon we started being pushed towards the shore, but the boat was also tipping. In a bid of desperation I pulled out Dad’s spear and infused it with growth mana.

  Just like Larry did for the first wave, I slammed the spear into the depths, trying to push the boat off the wave and away from the shore. The growth mana took hold, and the spear extended, growing out like a tree branch. Feeling the impact below, I pushed with all my might against the ground. I expected some kind of grand struggle against the water, but we broke through the wave and escaped the immediate crisis. Pulling the spear back up, I now held a withered-looking branch. I could feel the growth energy I had fed it fading fast, and the branch shrank back down to the size of Dad's spear.

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  With the boat now stable, Callen burst out of the cabin to check on the situation. I quickly passed on all I knew of the situation, and he dipped back into the cabin, coming out a bit later with another pole.

  “Larry kept his spare equipment inside. I think it was so it wouldn’t be washed away.” Callen was about to say more, but in the next moment I noticed fins of countless small fish swarming towards the boat. However, for some reason my instincts suggested that we weren’t the target. Looking at everyone, it was clear that no blood had been spilled, but looking back at Callen, who let off a lightning bolt into the oncoming swarm, I felt that they were after him.

  Without time to explain, I grabbed him by the collar of his clothes and tossed him back into the cabin and shut the door. Callen was understandably confused, but I got the confirmation I needed. The swarms of fish that hadn’t been fried by Callen’s lightning dispersed back into the water and started eating the fallen. We were entirely forgotten, which meant that something about Callen drew the fish in. Before Callen forced his way back out of the cabin, I shared my discovery with him. I left Callen to figure out why he was excellent fish bait and took control of the ship.

  With all the grace of an amateur, I pushed the ship closer to the shore. Together Callen and I hoped to try riding the boat until we left the forest. Riding the river downstream was much faster than slogging it through the forest and contending with monsters far more frequently than was comfortable. My move to get closer to the shore was with the opinion that it was better to be washed ashore than to capsize. That and being closer to land felt a lot more comfortable to me. I had decided I most definitely prefer our top-of-the-line ocean vessels versus this piece of junk.

  As we drifted, it became clear why Larry had pushed us further out. I had to frequently adjust for large rocks in the path, and the waves rose much higher as the ground below got more shallow. The guards were now working almost full time as a bailing crew. Grudgingly I accepted that staying in the shallows was unreasonable in the long term. Pushing back out into the river, it got a bit harder to push us, but the current kept us on course, and rocks were sparse, giving me and the guards time to rest.

  Finally we seemed to get into the groove of things just as the sun began to set. I could still function relatively well in the dark, but we were all getting tired after the exhaustive efforts put into river riding. The question was do we push to shore, or did Larry have his own solution? Callen found an anchor in the cabin, but I really wasn’t sure if sitting out on a moving river made much sense. Everyone was much more interested in pushing back ashore for the night so we could use the travel shelter.

  Pushing back towards the shore, an issue soon became apparent. Near town the rocks had been cleared out, making an easy exit/entrance. Soon I was panting, exhausted, and in desperation trying to weave between rocks while getting us closer to the shore. The sight of a wave rising behind us signaled it was time to land or bust. Giving everything I had, I pushed us in trying to squeeze through a small opening and was rewarded with the cracking sound of wooden boards cracking and breaking.

  “Everyone to the shore now! Incoming wave!” In the boat's current condition it wouldn’t be able to shelter us from the wave, and if the backwash from the wave dragged it back out, anyone on board would be screwed. I grabbed Hew and jumped over, followed shortly by the guards and Callen at the back. However, it was too late, and the wave loomed over us, crashing down.

  jerky thief

  Gramit wasn’t sure what had happened. One moment he was gradually raining poison-laced spines down on the helpless humans, and the next he was in a pitch-black stretch of nothing. He regenerated his legs that hadn’t made the journey with him and tried to look around but found himself incredibly frustrated as he had nothing to push against to change his angle.

  Time passed, but nothing changed, nothing except whispers that seemed to come from nowhere and couldn’t be heard by the physical body. They began to paw at his mind, and bits and pieces floated out. He began desperately trying to grab hold of anything he could, trying not to come undone, and grabbing the memory of the boy he wanted to make into a test subject shifted the darkness suddenly and violently.

  In an instant he found himself moved from complete and absolute darkness to a field of flowers and a large number of boxes with various labels. Whatever had eaten away at his being was gone or quiet, and despite the large chunks missing, he could still tell he was hungry. Looking at the boxes, he noticed one labelled "rations." The only problem was he was floating above the flower ground and couldn’t reach the box with his hands. He did discover that his legs, however, had a much better reach, and he managed to barely reach the box and loot some jerky to munch on while he tried to understand who he was.

  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.