‘You and Garec were quite something against those ghosts,’ Mark told Steven quietly.
‘We owe our lives to Gabriel O’Reilly. Without his warning we’d have been stuffed. I had time to prepare Garec; without him we had no chance.’
‘So how did that work?’
‘I don’t know. It just came to me, the idea that we might be able to share the staff’s strength.’ He looked into the forest where Garec was attaching a length of twine to a fallen pine. ‘Thank God it worked. We’d be wraiths ourselves now if it hadn’t. By the way, have you heard from Gabriel since?’
‘No.’ Mark didn’t appear surprised. ‘Not a word since he warned us the spirits were coming down the hill.’
‘I wonder if he’ll be back.’
‘I hope so,’ Mark replied. ‘He’s saved my neck twice now – and he gave us the heads-up about Sallax.’ He glanced over at Brynne and asked, ‘Any sign of him yesterday?’
Again Steven shook his head. ‘I don’t know if he made it far enough downriver to avoid the wraiths.’
‘Let’s hope,’ Mark said. ‘He’s got a score to settle with Nerak, if he can just get beyond the guilt. Imagine working for your greatest enemy all that time.’
‘Nerak has a lot to answer for.’
‘You realise he might kill us all.’
‘Maybe not. If we can get to Praga, we might be able to find Gilmour’s-’
‘Kantu,’ Mark interrupted. ‘The other Larion guy. He can help us, but how will we know who he is, or where to find him?’
‘I don’t have a clue.’ Steven gave his friend a hopeful look. ‘Let’s get there first.’
By the end of the day, two more levels had been added to the base. The final step was completed standing calf-deep in the frigid water, and Mark was glad they’d had the foresight to cut enough logs to build upper levels on the raft. ‘At least this way we might stay a bit drier,’ he commented with a shiver. ‘With only one layer of logs, we’d be soaking wet from the moment we started out.’
‘And by running the inner section at right angles to the lower and upper decks, we’ll hopefully cut down on water splashing up between the logs as well,’ Steven explained. ‘I’m not just a pretty face, you know!’
Garec and Brynne grinned at the unfamiliar expression, but Mark groaned as Steven started to explain the engineering principles he’d used. Steven was missing his weekly mathematics challenges; now he wondered what other engineering problems he might be able to solve using his maths knowledge as they navigated their way along the next leg of their journey.
With the last length of the trapper’s rope, Garec tied short loops at each corner of the square-bottomed vessel and two larger loops at its centre. ‘Handholds.’ He smiled at Brynne as she looked at him questioningly. ‘We don’t want anyone falling in.’
‘Make mine especially tight,’ she ordered, smiling back at him.
It warmed Garec’s heart to see Brynne’s smile. She was desperately worried about Sallax, and it was hard to believe her brother could have survived the army of murderous wraiths scouring the foothills for them two days earlier.
Without thinking, the young man added in a whisper, ‘He’s tough, Brynne, the toughest person I know. He found a way to make it through alive; I know he did.’ Garec’s heart sank as he watched Brynne’s smile fade.
‘He’s scared, Garec – scared, and suffering unbearable guilt. It’s not his fault. We have to find him.’
‘We will, I promise.’
Steven, unaware of their conversation, broke in by abruptly tossing the raft’s anchor line to Garec. He was in contagiously good spirits as he looked over their collective handiwork. ‘Tie this off to that tree. We don’t want her floating away overnight.’
Garec moved to fasten the line to a low-hanging branch.
Steven stood beside Mark as the last of their daylight faded behind the Blackstones to the west, limning everything in dim orange. Their raft looked a little like a proper boat that had struggled for a lifetime to mask a disability, and then simply given up. But Steven loved it. It was something tangible, it represented existential evidence, proof of their lives and their continued free will, and he beamed as he wrapped an arm around Mark’s shoulder and asked, ‘Well, what shall we call her?’
‘This crooked, not-entirely-seaworthy raft?’ Mark teased.
‘Nope,’ Steven declared, ‘that’s not her. And it’s too long to paint along her bow.’
‘Does she have a bow?’ Mark asked.
‘Don’t be so bloody negative; this fine vessel – this sturdy craft-’ Steven emphasised the words as he gestured towards the floating wooden barge, ‘-this transport of delight will take us in style and safety all the way to Orindale, in a tenth of the time it would take for us to walk.’
For a moment the two men were back drinking beer and joking over fast food in the front room of 147 Tenth Street. Mark felt them fall quickly back into stride, back into the comforting, rhythmic banter that had been a staple of their lives back home.
‘How about the Capina Fair?’ Garec asked, joining the fray.
‘Your girlfriend?’ Mark asked.
‘Former girlfriend,’ Brynne answered for him. ‘It ended messy.’
‘Ah,’ Steven said. ‘So you miss her?’
‘No,’ Garec replied matter-of-factly, ‘it’s just that this vessel – this fine vessel,’ he mocked, ‘looks a bit like her. That’s all.’
Brynne laughed out loud. ‘It certainly has the same sturdy foundation down below.’
Even in the dying light, they all could see Garec turn a deep shade of red.
‘A wide-hipped woman?’ said Mark, ‘nothing wrong with that, Garec. I’m sure she never blew over in a windstorm.’
Now Garec laughed as well. ‘You’re right, and I hope we can ask as much from this raft as we head downstream.’
Steven stood tall and dramatically placed one hand over his heart. ‘The Capina Fair it is.’
‘The Capina Fair,’ they echoed in unison.
‘Now my friends, to dinner,’ Steven gestured towards the cabin, ‘because apart from his skill at dispatching enraged spirits bent on our destruction, our friend Garec is a virtuoso fisherman with a longbow.’
Progress on the Capina Fair was slower than Steven had expected. The first day he and Mark estimated they had travelled about six miles, less than the distance they could have covered on foot. That night Garec cut and stripped three sturdy saplings, poles for them to help move the raft along more quickly; Steven would use his own hickory staff.
Although their progress improved a little, they were still not making headway towards Orindale with any alacrity. The Capina Fair was a clumsy vessel, clunking over rocks and getting hung up on fallen trees, and they spent an inordinately long time wrestling her free from obstacles. But Steven believed the river would widen and deepen as they moved north of the foothills; despite their daily challenge to keep moving, he was convinced easier passage lay ahead.
In an effort to keep them all lighthearted, Garec reminisced about the raft’s namesake: a strong-willed, stubborn woman with whom he had fought almost daily.
‘I can’t imagine why you never settled down with that girl, Garec,’ Brynne teased. ‘She sounds perfect for you.’
‘I thought about it,’ he replied dryly, ‘but if I’m going to spend my life with someone, I would prefer it to be someone who never makes me consider ending my life.’
They all laughed, and Brynne splashed him playfully with a handful of the icy water. The foothills were slowly flattening to meet the Falkan plains; everyone was glad to watch the Blackstone Mountains fall behind.
They fell into a rhythm, taking turns to stand on the front corners of the raft’s upper level and call out obstacles and poling directions. Garec kept a ready bow and a quick eye open: he felled a large deer just after sunset on their third day out. Fresh venison was a welcome change from their steady diet of fish, and the last of the trapper’s wine complemented the meat well. At night, they moored the raft to a tree trunk and slept on board.