RIV-16: A Debt Repaid

I had seen too much.

So said Captain Meskani as she closed the door behind her, trapping me in the cabin along with her dark secret: a big man, bound, chained, and gagged. He was Yulekk—a people of the far north, with pale bluish-white skin and antlers growing out of tufts of his white hair. To see a Yulekk in this condition this far south could only mean one thing: he was a slave on his way to be sold. Some southern countries, I knew, prized Yulekk slaves as bodyguards, mercenaries, and concubines. And they fetched top coin, too, since every step of the journey was illegal.

And in Rivona, it carried pain of death. Not to worry, Meskani assured me, for my death would come sooner—as Newke’s had, when he had caught a glimpse of the Yulekk. But Newke’s glimpse, at least, had been an accident, whereas I had intentionally stuck my nose where it hadn’t belonged. Still, my timing was convenient. With fog surrounding the ship, nobody would hear or see what she would do to me.

Then the ship gave a lurch and a groan, throwing both of us to the floor as something scratched and scraped up the side of the hull. A moment later, shouts and yells echoed from outside the cabin, calling for the captain. At first confusion darkened Meskani’s face, but then she seemed to realize something and hissed beneath her breath. She pulled herself to her feet and rushed out the door. I followed behind.

On deck, the fog was thicker than ever, enveloping the ship entirely such that you could only see half or less of it at any time. Even so, the first mate had seen and felt what had happened: whitewater rapids, with boulders scraping up along the hull. This made everyone on the ship halt in their steps. There were no rapids on the Snakeshallows. The only whitewater in this part of Rivona was in the Lost Rivers.

The deck exploded in swearing and finger pointing and fretting as the crew scrambled to figure out how the Conquest had ended up in the Lost Rivers. Meskani shouted for order, but few listened over the rising hysteria. What broke the chaos was another wrench of the ship—but this time from bowsprit, as the hershon wrestled themselves free of their harnesses. As they abandoned us and swam back the way we had come, that was when terror finally struck my heart.

But wait—the herthe was still floating forward in the river. How was that possible without the hershon, who had pulled us upriver this whole time? The first mate looked over the railing and pointed out that we were now floating downriver. The current direction had somehow switched beneath us—and I had a feeling nothing good waited for us downstream.

At this point in her life, Relga Craythe was also adrift in a current, one that pulled her faster and faster towards a place she’d always avoided. At this point in her war with the Bear and Doe, she had beat back the enemy on all previously-lost ground, earning her the title Reclaimer. Her lakeships terrorized the coastlines, forcing the enemy this way and that while her ground forces carved off piece by piece from the bulk. Every victory bolstered her coffers and the morale of her troops.

And yet Relga had never been more indulgent. She feasted every night she could, outdrinking every man and woman in her war council. She was married—while her first lakeships were being built, she had taken a husband and borne a daughter—yet now she had claimed multiple husbands and consorts. She butchered her way through every battle, taking no prisoners and leaving no survivors. Whatever her reasons were, Relga rode the raging river of war.

Things came to a head in the spring of 985 ASF, the Bear and Doe sent a diplomat with an offer: if she returned all the lands she had reclaimed, the Bear and Doe would sue for peace. In response, Relga beheaded him. And as the ravens of Great Forks Keep picked at the corpse, a realization struck her. When she looked into the mirror, it was not the Reclaimer that gazed back, but the Ruthless. Rugon the Ruthless.

Birdie’s warning from long ago echoed in her head. It had been many years since Relga had seen the old crone, but she remembered her words clearly. She could not become another Rugon, for such a legacy of bloodshed and conquest had led to the rise of the Bear and Doe in the first place. Yet her current course would see her enemies routed, conquered, and absorbed into Rivona—not a far cry from what her forbear had attempted. How long until another Bear and Doe rebelled, generations down the line? Where did the raging river end?

The crew of the Conquest asked similar questions as we hurtled through the Lost Rivers, the current growing faster and faster. Fog veiled the way ahead and most all of the riverbank, blinding us to what was coming ahead. Captain Meskani shouted commands from the upper deck of the Conquest, the crew scrambling to prepare the ship for rough water.

Then someone screamed and pointed towards the riverbank. A person. A woman, veiled in mist, peering at us from between the willows. I never laid eyes on her myself—by the time I looked in that direction, nothing was there. But it had thoroughly spooked the crew. Questions flew around. Who had that been? The Raven of the Willows? Captain Meskani roared at them to shut up and get all hands on deck—and it was in that moment that the Conquest smashed into boulder, suddenly appearing out of the mist.

The crash sent us all stumbling forward to the deck. Captain Meskani, however, jolted forward from upper decks, flying over the steps, falling down to the lower deck and, with a sickening, crunching noise, snapped her neck.

Chaos erupted across the ship. Some gasped at the captain’s unlucky fall. Others fled up towards the upper deck, as if they could flee the rapids about to swallow the Conquest. Others leapt over the railing, taking their chances alone with the river. I saw my opportunity and took it—bursting back into the captain’s cabin, reaching for the keys on the wall. As the Conquest lurched and groaned beneath my feet, I unlocked the chains of the Yulekk man, yelling at him that we had to get off this ship. I wasn’t sure he knew my tongue, but when he pulled off his blindfold, I saw understanding in his pale blue eyes.

Without a word between us, we rushed out of the captain’s cabin—but the first mate, the burly Khorvish man, barred our way. Murder glinted in his eyes. Before the first mate could skewer me with his sword, a huge hand yanked me backwards and out of the way—the hand of the Yulekk. In the same movement, he used his other hand to lash the chains of his manacle out at the first mate, whipping him across the face. The first mate screamed and stumbled backwards, which gave the Yulekk the perfect opportunity to put a foot on his chest and kick him out onto the deck.

I was in awe. Then the Conquest dipped and tilted as it churned through a rapid and reminded me I had no time for such things. Bursting out onto the deck, we beheld a scene of sheer panic. The crew scrambled across a deck awash in white water and debris. With the fog so thick, there was no way to see where the Conquest was heading, or even what rapids were currently chewing through its hull. Only the terrible sound of wood groaning and crunching and breaking in the maws of the river. It was only a matter of time before it would be swallowed.

Before the Yulekk and I could figure out where to go, the Conquestcareened as its hull skidded up onto a great boulder. Suddenly its main deck was a slick slope. One horrified gasp—that was all the air and time I got before I slipped over the side of the Conquest and into the river.

After Relga decapitated the diplomatic messenger, the raging river of war threatened to swallow both her and her country. Enraged at her defiance, the Bear and Doe shifted their decades-long strategy of patient and persistent warfare. Ignoring Relga’s lakeships, ignoring the pieces of territory she had reclaimed, they mustered all their forces for a brazen march to Great Forks.

The Bear and Doe themselves went on this aggressive last charge, joining together as they surrounded the city on all sides. The Bear and Doe were royalty of Khorven and Faela, so their presence emboldened their troops like never before. But to the Bear and Doe, it was much more simple: they wanted to see the Reclaimer snuffed out. Personally.

What happened next, we can never fully understand or explain. Relga could have turtled up into Great Forks, hunkering down for a siege she might have won, especially with her lakeships. Instead, against all prevailing wisdom both past and present, she rallied a small group of lakeships—a fraction of her overall fleet—and sailed out from Great Forks. Not into Lake Liron, but down the Kingsblood River, straight into the heart of the Bear and Doe’s encampment.

She would have been spotted and stopped immediately—if not for the fogstorm. It rolled over the riverlands as Relga made her approach, bringing with it blinding, muffling mist, torrential rain, and thunder that shook the leaves off the willows. The Kingsblood boiled white and angry, flooding the Bear and Doe’s camp and sending it into chaos. Some legends even claim that corvil, those monstrous blackbirds of myth, swooped through the mist, carrying off men and horses.

It was in this confusion and panic that Relga and her most loyal warriors landed their lakeships. The fogstorm continued to provide her distraction and cover, but nothing could change the fact that thousands of enemies surrounded Relga. She knew she would not survive this—but by all accounts, didn’t care. Only one thing mattered. She and her warriors carved her way through the camp, through storm and soldiers and chaos, until they found the Bear and the Doe.

But this Khorven man and Faelish woman were no strangers to combat—wielding a warhammer and longbow, respectively—and were surrounded by elite guards besides. Relga and her warriors threw themselves at them with a fierce, desperate bloodlust. Most stories and songs would have you believe that, in the end, the last ones standing were Relga, the Bear, and the Doe, battling each other on the banks of the Kingsblood as the fogstorm raged around them.

As Relga danced and dodged past the Bear’s swings, the Doe fired at her from afar, but each arrowstrike seemed to only fuel Relga’s rage. At last she stabbed the Bear’s knees, then his gut, then his heart. Then she turned towards the Doe, who frantically tried to bring her down with arrows. But Relga marching towards the Faelan with all the fury of the riverlands in her steps and, in one mighty swing, sliced her open from shoulder to hip.

We will never know the whole truth of that battle, though—for after she had slain her enemies, Relga collapsed … and did not get up again. Her body was never recovered. Some believe the river claimed it, or that it was lost in the chaos of that battle. There were, however, sightings of the Raven of the Willows that day. Accounts claimed she appeared near the fallen queen, carrying off her body into the mist, never to be seen again.

Nor do we know why Relga led this suicidal charge on the Bear and Doe. Was it all out of sheer desperation, a desire to win the war at all costs? Or was she afraid of winning, and what would come after? Afraid to rule? Afraid of what she would become, of what she had become, of carrying on Rugon’s torch? Did she believe it would be better to go out in a blaze of glory, bringing down the Bear and Doe with her? Or perhaps she had angered the Raven, and sought an escape before it was too late?

And what about that fogstorm? Can we chalk it up entirely to impeccable timing, or even an excellent read of weather conditions? Or was something else going on in the shadows?

We just don’t know. Like her ancestor, Rugon, it seems Relga took some secrets to the grave—secrets whose breadth and depth we might not ever fully understand.

We do know some things, though. With the Bear and Doe’s death, their armies crumbled and scattered into the riverlands, fleeing back to their home countries. Never again would Faela and Khorven come some close to wiping Rivona off the maps. In sacrifice, Relga had completed her Reclamation, restoring the borders of Rivona first laid down by Rugon. In death, she had quelled the raging river, burying its fury to her grave. It would be generations before Rivona fully recovered, but those generations would seek recovery and restoration, not revenge and conquest.

One question continues to plague me to this day, however. What parts had the Raven truly played in all of this? What had she gotten out of raising a girl with the rivers and ravens, from keeping the royal line unbroken? If we are to believe the Raven walked the battlefield that fateful day, why did claim Relga’s body?

Perhaps that question sticks with me because of what happened on the Conquest.

After going overboard, my next memory is waking upon the riverbank with the Yulekk man crouching over me. He’d saved me from drowning. That much was clear. He did not speak my language—or even at all—but checked to make sure I was alright. I was, save for the occasional coughing fit and a blaring headache. Nobody else was around, though. No other surviving crew. The Conquest had vanished. It was just me, the Yulekk, and foggy wilderness of the Lost Rivers around us.

But were we alone? My mind snapped back that person the crew had spotted on the riverbank, just before the rapids. I hadn’t seen her, but I recalled what others had shouted about the figure. That she had been a woman. With something upon her head, perhaps a crown. Wielding a weapon in one hand, perhaps a sword.

Had the crew seen what they had wanted to see? Had it been the spirit of the Reclaimer on the riverbank, or a wisp of mist? Had she bought centuries-old fury down upon ship, captained by a Khorven and Faelan who had dared sail through her childhood home—or was it just the riverlands having its way with the Conquest? Such things seemed too farfetched, yet leaving all that had happened to chance and coincidence somehow felt wrong.

One thing was for certain, though. While I had undoubtedly made my own situation worse since leaving Angler’s Arch, I wasn’t alone anymore. The Yulekk man had not spoken a word—I knew from study that Yulekk rarely spoke, using musical instruments instead to communicate—but I could see the immense gratitude in his eyes. The confidence in his hand when he set it upon my shoulder—confidence that he had full intentions of sticking around.

Together, we would find our way out of the Lost Rivers.