200m: Forgotness Book 1

Forgotness

Book 1: 200m

By Tom Fraser

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 Tom Fraser

v0.1 2016

v0.4 2017

v1.0 2018

original maps came from floodmap.net

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends.This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to your favourite ebook retailer to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Book 1: 200m

Chapters:

1. Hulland

2. Lambourn Downs

3. Dog Lane

4. Wayland's Smithy

5. Fenny Bentley

6. Paramotor Club

7. Diggle, Dobcross, Delph and Denshaw

8. Cat and Fiddle

9. Blowingstone

10. Clogger Lane

11. It's Tissington again

12. Wham to Feizor

13. The Naglfari and the Archieflower

14. More Hellifield than Otterburn

Chapter 1

Hulland

We reached Threewall in the early morning. There hadn't been anywhere for us to sleep that night so we had kept wading and walking and now we were all very tired and grumpy. On top of that, despite the many times we had washed ourself in the last twenty fours hours, we kept getting that hint of other people's... shit. Not pleasant.

We gave our hammock roll, that was tied round our shoulders, a tug to try to stop it rubbing so badly. At least the water levels were getting lower.

At last, out of the rain and mist and dark, we came to dry land and climbed out of the water and up onto the rocks at the foot of a high wall.

Left or right? Stamford asked. We shrugged. Who knew? We were badly off course, lost in fact. None of us had been here before. Left then? We saw lights that way a couple of hours ago.

Mugs? asked Brentford.

Oh hope so, we muttered with a mix of sarcasm and vengeful anger. The others laughed but still looked nervous; we were close to the wall where it felt safer to say such things, but only a little bit.

In the Wetlands you did not last long on your own. Among the Wetlanders we had our families and our clans. For those outside of the clans, well, they were either in the gangs of raiding Mugs or had joined one of the cults, but no one survived alone.

We scrambled over wet rock until we noticed that there was often a thin strip of flat ground running along the very foot of the wall. We moved onto this narrow path and our speed picked up after that.

It helped that after hours of wading through water our legs now felt like they were light as a feather and that we could walk forever.

We walked through the morning. The rain stopped sometimes, leaving a light mist floating around us. It was warm, as ever. To the south-east we could see the glow of the sun through the clouds.

The walls themselves were made of concrete, very rough to the hand. Every few steps there would be a thin join running vertically up where the sections were fitted together. It was amazing to think that Toplanders could do this while we lived in treehouses, shacks and tents, but then none of us knew much about Toplanders. It was not like they came travelling south to see us and if any Wetters got in to Topland we never heard from them again: they never came back out.

In the early afternoon we started to hear noises in the distance: the shouts of sailors and fishing folk, the calls of duck and geese and swan and finally, as the gate came into sight, the arguing and shouting of the traders.

Cam stopped.

Are we really going to try this? To try and break in?

That’s the plan. We replied. But we were just as nervous. In a couple of hours we would probably be dead. We all would be. But on the other hand, we had been a couple of hours from death our entire life. That was why we were trying to get into Topland in the first place: for a better, safer, life.

We had been given an idea of what to expect but the gate was much worse than we had been told. For a start it was not at ground level, it was a good four or five metres up the wall, a long low slit about a metre high and twenty metres across in four sections. The Wetters had built a ramshackle ramp of stone and rotten wood up the wall so they could deal with the traders inside. Goods were being passed in and out of the gate with a great deal of shouting and pulling. One Wetlander even fell off the ramp when a trader had let go of whatever they had been passing through the wall. And for every Wetter at the gate at the top of the ramp there were double that queuing up behind and many more on the rocks below, in boats or walking to and from the gate through the shallow water.

We could not actually see a Toplander through all the Wetters, maybe a brief hand or an arm, but no faces. We wondered if they looked different.

There were a lot of Wetters around us now as we moved through the crowds, they were resting on rocks and in boats preparing to set off back to wherever, or maybe planning on staying the night, preferring to stay close to the relative safety of the Gate compared with the risk of travelling south with valuables that could tempt the Mugs.

We cleared a space close to the Gate and sat down.

Well? whispered Brentford. What now?

We're not sure this is even the right Gate, said Cam looking round. It sounded bigger than this, the way Alne described it anyway.

Alne was our clan leader and had sent us on this mission north. We had always had suspicions about the ‘mission’ and it had gone spectacularly badly so far. Eight of us had set out nearly a week before, sailing north, trying to avoid the normal routes and yet only us four had made it.

But, we were here now.

We sat waiting for the right moment: just before the sun set, before the Toplanders locked down the Gate for the night.

We nibbled nervously on the last of our food then, as the sun went down a bell started ringing: it was the ten minute warning, time for the last trades. There was a rush for the gate.

We got up and began pushing through the crowd, holding our sacks in front of us, their heavy liquid weight helping us force the crowds out the way. Finally we got to just behind some Wetters actually talking to a Trader. They were shouting to each other, arguing over the price of oysters. It was strange hearing the selfish ‘I’ and, by the sound of it, said by a Wetlander. We glanced over at Brentford who was already preparing the fuse. We knelt down and did the same.

The Wetter in front stopped talking and then shouted agreement and the trade went ahead. A sack went in, a small wooden box was passed out. The Wetter checked the contents of the box and started to turn, as did the Trader inside. We stood up, pushed forward and heaved the two bombs onto the lip of the gate and with the rope tied round our wrists pushed the bombs as far as we could into the gate.

Alne had made us promise that we would shout a warning first.

Bomb! we shouted. The Traders heard and started to run, we were already ducking down under the lip of the gate and pulling back hard on the trigger ropes.

Stamford, who had been behind Brentford was still standing, trying to see what was going on, not realising we had already launched the bombs. Other Wetters, more used to the constant attempts on the gates were diving out the way.

We leapt over Brentford and managed to pull Stamford down just before we heard the roar of the twin bombs going off.

Even as the flames still curled round the lips of the Gate we were up and rolling through the hole. Brentford rolled through beside us. We could see dozens more scrambling though the gap.

Then we heard the steel shutters coming down slicing through Wetters still trying to get in. We rolled out the other side and down onto a stone floor where barrels and boxes lay broken and on fire around us.

In the twilight we could see buildings below, real stone buildings and beyond them another much lower wall, over which, in the increasing dark, we could just make out the dry earth of Scotland.

People were running out of the building, guns were being fired, alarms were sounding.

We stood up and ran one way, Brentford and the others ran in the opposite direction.

Chapter 2

Lambourn Downs

Our boats were gathered round the clan home of Treetops. What had once been a large wood was now a bedraggled group of maybe thirty trees. Some were already dead, the rest were dying, drowning. The older trees survived the longest. In the centre, at the highest point, a small group of trees held the clan treehouse. There had once been a village of treehouses. But this was the last.

Our home is gone, Alne was saying to the gathered families, we have little to trade. If we stay here the Mugs will get us or we will become Mugs ourselves. We have few options.

Topland! someone shouted, heads nodded in agreement.

"Yes there is Topland. But Topland has never helped us. Never. Since the very first flood when they built their walls they have never offered help and never allowed anyone in for free. They bombed us, remember.

There's overseas to Fortress Europe. Alne continued.

We won't make it!

Our boats aren't seaworthy

And we have nothing to trade for passage.

Even if we do make it there, how do we get into the Fortress?

We'll be sold as slaves if we're lucky.

We'll be drowned.

We know, agreed Alne patiently, we know. The Scandinavians to the East, they'll have us but we have no way of getting there either and nothing to pay for the crossing. And they are still getting new volcanoes every year. It’s not easy for them. If we had some tech or...

Alne stopped.

Technology from the old days could be valuable, if we could find it, but here in the Wetlands most was lost underwater.

Wales? someone suggested.

We don’t want to join the Scientologists, life’s crap enough as it is without any extra bullshit.

Scatologists more like.

Alne nodded and smiled as laughter crackled round the room.

Maybe.

What about the Priests? asked a voice from the back of the room.

There was silence. But that was hardly surprising. We had met the Priests often enough to know what the price of joining them was: it was called the Last Supper and no one knew if you would be alive the next morning or not.

There were other clans we could join, maybe. Some lived in the tower tops of the old cities. But towers were risky. There were few warnings of coming earthquakes and sunamis. One day a clan was there, the next, just bodies floating in the water.

Our trees had been good to us, strong in the quakes and bending to the waves, we had our casualties but fewer than most.

But now the trees were dying and we had to move on.

What do we do? another asked Alne, who had been our clan elder for as long as we could remember.

Well, Alne began, we must get into Topland and either stay there or try to make our way on to Scandinavia.

But Topland won't let us in!

No, they won't, Alne agreed, so we are going to break in, in groups, over the walls or through the gates

There was a pause, not for effect, Alne just looked very worried.

Or, we find a way to force us all in.

There was a cheer.

All the clans, get all the clans in!

This was night-time talk. We had all toyed with this idea that somehow all the clans could join together and attack the walls of Topland but it seemed impossible. We had no weapons beyond fishing spears and long knives. There were some guns, Mugs seemed to have a few, but bullets were getting scarce.

While Toplanders had... well, no one was very sure. There was talk of guns, seen at the Gates, cars and even aeroplanes. But no one knew for certain.

But first we need people to get in and see what the Toplanders think. Maybe they'll help now. Maybe they need help. Maybe they need people. We need to know. So, we are going to send a group north. We are going to get them in.

Some folk were excited, there were cheers. Parents muttered to each other and grandparents looked sad. Alne broke up the meeting and we wandered over to the shoreline and dipped our toe in the water. It was warmer. Summer was coming.

This is brilliant! Exclaimed Brentford slapping us on the back. Topland! We're going to get in, we're all going to get in, it’s going to be great. It's nuts! It’s brilliant! We've all got to go together.

We'll go in whatever group we're told. We replied shaking Brentford's hand off our shoulder.

But we can ask, said Brentford. We can ask and they'll let us because we work as a team. Leicester, Stamford, Cam, we'll all ask to go together. We work together already.

No we... we began, but Brentford interrupted.

Get a grip, you're such a downer. We will, we'll all go, we'll all get in. We'll eat food. Brentford saw my look. Food, not fish, food, real food. Cake.

Whatever. We have to get there first. We replied gloomily, as ever tired of Brentford’s endless enthusiasm.

Around us the clan were preparing for the night. Meals were being cooked, children washed, adults talked in groups.

Let's go out for the night somewhere. It was Newbury, a bit younger than us but always hanging round, wanting to join in.

There's not enough wind, said Brentford. The clan had four windsurf boards that were highly prized for their speed but mainly used by us as it took a certain skill to ride them. And anyway we wouldn't be allowed to take them out this late.

Fine, we agreed, let's go night fishing.

In the end Newbury wasn't allowed to go but Brentford, Stamford, Leicester, Cam and us climbed into the smallest boat and rowed our way out into deeper water. It was a metal boat so it felt safer but its various holes were patched badly and one of us had to bail constantly. It started raining, as it did most nights, which did not help.

What's wrong Felixstowe? Cam sat beside us in the bow as Brentford and Stanford rowed. Leicester let out fishing lines over the stern.

Can you stop calling use that? We asked Cam, please.

What's wrong with it, it’s a nice name. One of the lost cities.

They can't all be lost cities. How many lost cities were there? It’s just ugly. Anyway, you're called Cam not Cambridge.

That's my mum, got bored with it and anyway, there was another Cambridge.

Was there?

Yes, Stanford called out, turning round and nearly capsizing the boat. Don't you remember? Years ago. But the family sailed on.

Really? Don't remember. And anyway, we looked at Cam. We think it should be something... less.

Less? asked Cam, like Fee?

Lix! shouted Stanford.

Stowe. Brentford joined in.

Felix? offered Cam. You want to be called Felix?

We nodded.

We're going for Freex. Said