Delta City: Magda's Saga, #2

By Ann Stratton

Magda of Ferrin is on her way to Delta City to fill the marriage contract she made with Armin of Pothrin. She’s been looking forward to this for a long time. However, the Great River stands at flood, the weather is foul, everyone has to comment on her family situation, and Mother Ferrin herself is in Delta City to oversee the wedding. What else can go wrong? Magda’s about to find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Stratton
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386585121

Ann Stratton

Ann Stratton started writing at age thirteen with the usual results. After a long stint in fan fiction, honing her skills, she hopes she has gotten better since then. She lives in Southeastern Arizona, trying to juggle all her varied interests. 

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Delta City

Ann Stratton

A Blind Woman Production publication

Copyright © 2017 Ann Stratton

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this ebook, please purchase an additional copy for each person with whom you want to share it. If you're reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Credits

Cover painting courtesy of Meyer Stratton

Editing, formatting, and cover design by Ann Stratton

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Delta City

The river was receding, leaving behind great lakes of wet silt and flood trash piled high. The world reeked of mud and wet vegetation and more often than not, the smell of something dead. The road that ran along the higher bank was deep in gummy mud that dragged at the wagon wheels and slowed their progress. Tata and Een leaned into their harnesses, setting one great foot in front of the other with methodic precision. Occasionally one or the other would grunt, commenting on the load she carried under such conditions.

Magda held the reins tensely, not wanting to distract them from their task. Not all the sweat pouring down her body was from the humidity; one misstep or moment of distraction, and the whole caravan would be stuck here until the next flood season.

Go faster! the man she’d hired as a caravan guard demanded. Pop whip! Make move!

The man might be acting as Magda’s extra eyes and hands, but as far as handling hrsen and wagons went, he knew less than any city man did. Magda didn’t bother looking at him, only transferring the reins to one hand so she could mop the sweat out of her eyes. Her bandana was sopping wet and she needed to wring it out, but she didn’t dare drop the reins for that. She shook her head, as much in negation as to shoo away the hovering cloud of gnats. They are knowing how to get through this. Be you doing your job, Meevo man. After the flood is hard times for the locals, and they are liking a little piracy to get by. Be you watching around us, not the hrsen who are carrying your useless ass.

The wagon thumped down into a pothole, nearly topping him off his perch on top of the wagon. He clutched at the railing, swearing, and Magda didn’t suppress the smirk. The only reason she’d taken this fine fellow on, one Jiomi by name, was because they were both going in the same direction and she couldn’t drive, watch behind her, and hold a weapon at the same time. As soon as they got to Delta City, she was cutting him loose.

Behind them, voices rose from the next wagon in line. Magda’s smirk went to a smile and she relaxed, a little. Trevorin clan was musical, and they liked to sing to keep themselves occupied on the road, and Magda liked to listen to them. Her brother Brian was scandalously musical himself, cheerfully ignoring Ferrin clan’s disapproval while dumping generous tips into the clan’s coffers. Travelling with Trevorin clan made her miss him and she hoped a Trevorin woman would offer him a child contract. A child of his talent and their tendencies would be a prodigy indeed.

Maybe she should approach the woman driving the wagon behind her, see if she was amenable to the match. Ferrin clan was known more for their hardheaded practicality and thought Trevorins were flighty and brainless; Trevorins thought Ferrins were dull and humorless; such a match would take some serious negotiating, provided Brian was interested.

A little rise in the road brought Tata and Een to a drier stretch. Mud fell from the wheels, pattering on the wagon’s sides with little thumps. Jiomi swore as one wet clump flew up and hit him. Sitting safely in the middle of the wagon seat in front of the mess, Magda smirked some more.

The road dipped back down again, returning to mud. Magda took the time to look around her at the wet landscape.

The road, wet as it was, wound along some high bank the river had abandoned in a previous flood season, long enough to grow up in trees and brush. Delta People crews kept the crest cleared for traffic, as not all their trade depended on the river for transport, and provided guides when the river moved the road. Today’s guide had run ahead to check road conditions, leaving Tata and Een to make their own way.

On the one side, the broad flood plain stretched to the horizon, marked by lines of trees following subsidiary streams. Below the trees, hidden by them, lay the Delta People’s little farms and villages, buried in their yearly layer of silt. When the New Year’s Star rose, they would move off their rafts and houseboats, celebrate their new year with glorious exuberance, and begin planting.

On the other side, sunlight glinted off the river through the trees it had left standing. Here and there, a houseboat or a raft anchored, waiting for the water to go down. Magda’s eye automatically sought them out, finding them clustered mostly around clumps of trees where the land was a little higher. Of course: the trees trapped silt and flood trash and the hummocks dried out faster, letting the people set their fields sooner.

Looking out farther, where the great river’s broad brown expanse still rolled, she could just about make out the small dots of riverboats. Flood or not, the world must go on, and Delta City’s life depended on more than the little farmers and fishers that made up their tribe.

The Delta guide, a woman of approximately Magda’s height, dressed in the drab mourning brown the Delta People adopted during flood season and carrying a small backpack, a wide brimmed hat on her hair growing out of its close crop into springy curls, jogged back around the bend in the road. She saluted Tata and Een with a trilled whistle and they flicked their ears at her in response, heads down to the job at hand. Delta women tended to go by titles rather than names, and Magda knew her as the Running Woman, or Runner for short. Runner easily grabbed the handle, pulled herself up the step, and settled onto the wagon seat beside Magda.

De roat is goot, she said. Dealing with foreigners had flattened her accent considerably, making it not as thick as some Magda had heard. She looked out at the river and up at the sky, nodding her head with a tongue click of approval. It is wet, but the Great River grands us passage, to de city. We get dere plenty time, for de celebration. Her smile was a bright flash of teeth as she leaned comfortably against the seat back. We glat to have you for your weddin’. New Year de bes’ time for weddin’.

Thank you, Magda said, a flush of pleasure going through her. After all the trouble in Crossroads and the long winter waiting for Armin to sign off on all his other contracts, she was looking forward to starting the next journey of her life. She was disappointed that nobody from her family or clan would be there, and that hurt more than a stab to the heart, but she was determined that that disappointment was not going to ruin anything for her, not anymore. If her mother Claine or Mother Ferrin were going to exile her for daring to side with her children, then so be it. They could just miss Magda’s wedding to Armin.

It would be nice if her children could be there, though. Magda sighed, her mood dulling down considerably. She would really like to see her children again, and her grandchildren especially. Lenore would have had her baby by now, and how much would the rest have grown? She missed the whole lot terribly, life of a Traveler or not. Sometimes she thought about settling down somewhere and making her life in one place with her family around her, as some did.

And then she would look around her, at the two mighty hrsen pulling her wagon that held everything she owned, at the flood on one side and the silt on the other and the blue dome of the sky over all, and knew she would never give it up, even if she had to get herself an entourage to carry her around, like her mother Claine had.

Dey sing nice, Runner went on, listening to the Trevorins encouraging their hrsen. Dey sing ad your weddin’, too?

I am not thinking about it, Magda replied. I am not thinking about anything more than trading contracts with Armin. I am not wanting any more complication. The engagement was complicated enough. She shuddered at the memory.

Runner’s grin got even wider. So, he give you boy, yeah yeah? Whad you give him? That boy pretty hart to top.

Magda snorted. Roof, warm bed, plenty of food he isn’t having to catch himself, company for the rest of his days. I am thinking that’s a pretty good return for the investment.

Runner’s laugh was delighted and happy. Still smiling, she pulled off her hat so she could run her hands through her growing hair, combing the curls. Yeah, dat’s pretty goot. Bo’d you get somedin’ out of id. Besd way to make a marriage, you askin’ me?

I am not asking you, Magda said in mock disapproval, letting the smile leak out onto her mouth. It was impossible to stay unhappy around Runner. Be you taking a new contract yourself? Be you keeping the old one?

Runner scratched her head. Can’t decite. Mebbe I led de River decite. I not seen my olt man since Floot, mebbe have to ged a new one. She shrugged and put her arms around her knees. All dings are new, when de Star rises.

I fuck you, Jiomi offered, sticking his head over the roof.

Runner looked up at him, rolling her eyes with a toss of her head. Tss, as if I would! No chance, Meevo man! Ask your own wife, nod me wid my own husbant to ged!

Magda smirked. Delta men and woman chose their own partners, and while the New Year’s Festival might look like wild licentious behavior in outsider eyes, it was all very serious to them. The New Year’s Festival didn’t just celebrate the receding river and new planting season; it was a time to reaffirm their social bonds, especially to each other. If that included breaking up with old partners and finding new ones, who would be the first to deny them that right? Magda was no judge. She dealt with people from every tribe on the continent, as long as there was a fair deal in it.

Tata picked up her head, ears swiveling. Een raised her head too, though neither slowed her pace. The road was hard enough going and Magda had her toe under the pin to free them from their harnesses, if it came to that. Magda pulled the whip out of its socket and rapped it against the wagon roof over her head. Jiomi! Be opening your eyes!

Runner had noticed the hrsen’s behavior, and as quickly and gracefully as she had climbed up, she was gone, disappearing into the brush on the side of the road. Magda rearranged the reins in her hands so that she could drop them and grab the big knife holstered on the seat riser if she had to.

Behind her, the Trevorins had stopped singing, warned by their own animals’ behavior. Above her Jiomi thumped around on the roof, hopefully arming himself. He had a bow and a long knife but hadn’t used either one in the time he was traveling with Magda, and she wondered if he really could. That was irrelevant, right now, and she watched the road ahead of her and the brush on either side, trying to spot what the hrsen already knew about.

Birdcalls sprang out of the trees where all birds had been scared off by the caravan’s advance. Magda reached down and loosened the knife in the scabbard. Something was afoot. Maybe robbers. The smaller Delta communities were often resentful of the larger, richer, more powerful Delta City and Runner represented that unwelcome authority. The caravan, ten wagons long and loaded with all manner of goods from all over the continent, was headed for the City. The loads would be an incalculable wealth for some of these people, for whom Flood season was a hardship and Delta City a remote threat.

Magda tried to remember how the relations were lately, as she kept one hand on the reins and one hand on her knife, and all eyes and ears on the world around her. Tata and Een still plodded on as if nothing were wrong, but their heads were up and their ears perked forward, with occasional flicks to one side or the other.

Tata flung up her head in surprise as Runner reappeared out of the brush on the side of the road. She climbed up on Magda’s wagon seat, her expression somewhere between exasperated, frustrated, and annoyed.

Tree’s down, she said, voice just as exasperated as her face. De’re cuttin’ id up and haulin’ id, but id’s still blockin’ de roat. She huffed, still only perched, not settled. If y’ believe dat. I go ant tell de others, okay okay? Mebbe we can ged dis done ‘fore sun down.

She swung back down and was gone before Magda could comment. Magda drew her knife and laid it across her lap. If the woodcutters were just the distraction before the robbery, they’d find a fight on their hands.

The road snaked along the bank and two more turns brought Magda and her wagon within sight of the downed tree. Five or six people were busy around it, almost invisible in their mourning brown, cutting limbs, carrying branches, climbing up and down the trunk. They turned around as Magda’s wagon came into view, and she pulled on the reins, drawing Tata and Een to a halt. They shook their heads and stamped their feet to show their opinion of her request, but didn’t argue.

Ho, the woodcutters! Magda called. One of them, a burly woman with arms as big around as a normal man’s thighs, looked at her companions, handed over her axe, and walked toward Magda, an impatient expression on her face.

Y’re nod geddin’ dru here, she declared.

Well, that was obvious. Magda eyed the tree—and a magnificent matriarch of the forest it was, too—leaned her elbow on her knee to bring her closer to the other woman’s level. I am seeing that. Be it much longer before the road is clear?

The woman’s expression implied Magda was an idiot. Much.

Magda turned her head from side to side. Dense brush and close growing trees bound the road on either side here. The matriarch tree had done little to break up the canopy. Be there another way around it?

No. Ant we not cuttin’ no trail f’you.

Magda shrugged. Then we are waiting. Jiomi! Be keeping the watch! She hooked the reins over the footboard, slid the knife and scabbard into her belt, and climbed down. She loosened the hrsen’s harness so they could relax a little, and they shook themselves all over, rattling the gear. Een threw her tail over her rump, hitched up a hind hoof and dropped her head, going