The Dashing Dashro
-------------------------

Toiling away in the field outside his farm, the sole worker stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow. He rested on his hoe and surveyed the planted seeds in front of him, with a small pile of weeds to the side. He closed his eyes and let the cool breeze wash over him, drying the sweat on his skin. He reached down and unscrewed the flask on his hip, taking a long drink of cold water and letting the last of it run over his face. In his mind he conjured a picture of the field last summer when the farm was in full bloom and a smile came to his lips.

He was startled from his daydreams by a shout in the distance. He saw a boy running along the road at the side of the field. The boy was red in the face from the effort and waving a piece of yellow cloth as the distance closed. He arrived in front of the farmer, and stopped with his hands resting on his knees, as he caught his breath. He held up a hand to ward off questions while he gathered his wits about him.

"Come quick," the boy wheezed. "There has been an accident. They need you."

The man did not say a word. He placed the hoe back into his shed and locked it. He turned to the boy and was on the verge of asking a question when he shook his head silently. He ran his fingers through his damp hair and took his coat from the wall, wrapping the long leather garment around him before following the boy.

"Let’s go," he said. 

As the farmer and boy approached Ackleberry Triple Junction, the farmer strained his neck looking for his sister. Finally, she burst from the house nearby and ran to her brother, burying her tear streaked face in his chest.

"Brother," she sobbed, "there has been a terrible accident. He cannot ride the coach anymore. Come see, come see."

The farmer followed his sister into the house to see a man lying tucked in bed, his face deathly pale, murmuring in pain in his drugged sleep. His sister gripped his hand tighter and pressed her face against his arm, her tears staining the dust on his coat and creating tiny rivulets running down his sleeve as freely as they ran down her cheek.

"He can't drive the coach," she murmured "and I don't know when he will be able to again." She paused for what seemed to be an eternity before picking up the coach driver's hat and whip from the side. She handed them to the farmer and asked "Will you?"

The farmer looked at the instruments of a new profession in his hand and thought it over. He had always admired Sako sitting up on top of that carriage, tilting his hat as he passed.

"Suppose I'll have to. For a time at least," he reassured his sister. "It'll cost you though. One slice of powderfruit cake." 

His sister doubled her crying at his words and lifted her apron to her face, smudging her makeup.

"I can't," she cried. "The cow. No milk."

"I'll sort that out first then," the farmer stated, walking from the room.

He spent the next day collecting ingredients and mulling over his options. The sun as setting as he returned to the house, a glorious red over the mountains. He entered the house and put the ingredients on the table.

"Just like mum used to make it," he reassured his sister before sitting down. She busied herself in the kitchen while he took her watch by the bed. "Reckon I will have to get started as soon as I have finished that bit of cake."

His sister smiled over at him and mouthed thanks. Soon enough, the steaming cake was taken from the oven and as she had done so many times before, she slapped his hand away as he tried to eat it immediately.

"You scraped the bowl," she chastised him. "You'll have to wait!"

While the cooking went on, Galael, the farmer wandered outside to inspect the carriage and prepare it.

"Where is it?" he shouted to his sister. "I was going to harness up the dashro and give them food and water before I head out.”

"Oh they only brought him back," she fretted as she joined him outside. "I never really asked. Everything happened in such a hurry. Him. And then I sent the boy. And then a healer came. And the cow stopped and....”

As his sister burst into tears, Galael rested an arm around her "Not to worry, I’ll go find them at first light. They can’t have gone far," he reassured her.

"Well if that does not work," she sniffled, "find someone who has collected all the waystation curio collection. They can transport themselves directly to the carriage.”

"Freeloaders?" Galael asked.

"No," she giggled, drying her eyes, "friends of the waystation!”

In the morning, Galael was gone before the sun rose. He placed the coach driver’s hat upon his head and pulled his coat tight. His sister’s words rang true and so he roamed the inner road, asking each person that he came across whether they had the full collection of curios.

Perhaps it was another piece of bad luck in a week filled with bad luck but all he came across were bards, scholars and pilgrims. He wandered into cities but the seemed equally deserted and of the carriage there was no sign, nor had it been seen by any he met. The odd pilgrim even gave him a piece of their mind, moaning about the state of the blisters on their feet and how, in their grandfather’s day, the route used to take them up to the top of the mountain. Galael just smiled and thanked them for their comments.

After an exhausting day, Galael made his way to the aetherplex, which he was pleased to see showed a little more activity. He went into the Pilgrim manse to get a long cold beer and sat on a stump at the aetherplex. For a while he watched people and after a while a pattern began to emerge. It appeared to him that the more exotic a pet that people rode in on, the more experienced they were, and to his mind, the more likely they were to be possessors of the curios that he desired.

This time luck was on his side for the second person he asked admitted that she did indeed possess the curio collection that he required and would be able to help him in the way he asked. She beckoned for Galael to follow her and in the blink of an eye, they were in a holding room. She pointed to the exit and told Galael that through there was the carriage. With that, she carved a hole in reality and disappeared.

Galael went through the exit and was immediately flung to one of the cushioned seats as the carriage hurtled along the road, seemingly out of control. Galael looked around the small room he found himself in, trying to look for some way to stop the runaway carriage. There was a rope that headed outside and a lever. Galael tried both but to no avail. The rope appeared to turn on a light and the lever, if it had ever done anything, did not now.

Galael rose from his si9t, aware that action had to be taken now. He opened the door of the carriage as it hurtled dangerously close to the trees of the Serenwilde. One hand grasped the whip and he placed it on top of the carriage as he prepared to climb on the roof. The carriage hit a branch and bucked beneath him. She door slammed into his body and took his breath away pulling him from the carriage so only his fingertips held on to the door as his body flailed precariously between the trees that hemmed in the path on both sides. 

He looked up to see a giant oak ready to take the door of the carriage off and his with it. With an inhuman effort, he pushed the door shut and reached for the roof, the branches from the tree whipping against him and drawing blood from his cheek but the trunk mercifully missing him as he clambered atop the carriage, careering out of control through the forest. He climbed to his feet on top of the vehicle and moved towards the front, slamming his foot down with each step, showing a confidence that inside, he did not feel.

Finally, he made his way to the front of the carriage, to the driver’s seat itself and slumped there as he caught his breath. He watched the magnificent sight of the two dashro held in harness in front of him, their limbs moving at an almost effortless pace which gobbled up the yards in front of them.

As he recovered, he started looking around to see the trappings he had. To the left of his head was a lamp, lit up from where he had tugged on the rope earlier. He lifted the cushion on his seat and there was a small box beneath it, with an empty bowl, which seemed to have the remains of a meat stew in it, together with a block of resin. A heavy bell sat in the corner of the box, the handle and ringer wrapped separately in a cloth.

Galael looked around for the reins of the dashro and his bad luck held up once more as his eyes caught sight of them being dragged along the floor between the two dashro. He groaned as he put down the whip and started to stand as the carriage veered left heading into the Blasted Lands. A three legged hyena snapped at the heels of the dashro on the left, causing it to veer off the path. 

Galael looked up and saw two hundred yards in front of him, a gravedigger pit had opened up in the ground and the snarling of hungry gravediggers could be heard over the pounding hooves. He tried to step down between the dashro pair but the uneven ground kept jolting and throwing him back into his seat.

One hundred and fifty yards. Galael grabbed the whip and flicked it alongside the head of the dashro on the left to try and correct the course but to no avail. Hearing the whip, they began to run faster.

One hundred yards! The bell! Galael remembered the bell. He tore open the seat and took out the bell. Fumbling hands threaded the ringer into the bell and a tentative attempt brought out only the tiniest of noises.

Fifty yards! Galael desperately threaded the handle into the bell turning it as fast as he could. "Righty tighty," he murmured the words of wisdom his father had taught him, as with a click it finally pulled tight. He rang the bell, its dolorous tones ringing out across the desolate landscape. 

The carriage pulled up five yards short of the hole. Galael breathed a sigh of relief and jumped down alongside the carriage, stroking the sweating flanks of the dashro, feeling the power of the beast beneath his hand. He stopped at the beast’s ear and whispered softly, introducing himself, letting each of the animals get used to him. Although his sister would accuse him of spoiling the beasts, he fed each of them a slice each of the powderfruit cake he had liberated from her kitchen that morning before he left.

He took the reins from between the animals and head them back to the path, scaring off mutts and jackals with his whip. Finally, back on the path, Galaerl took his seat again. Reins in his hand, he flicked them and made a clucking noise. The carriage started to move at a more measured pace now as the sun beat down. In the distance to the south of Magnagora, a bell could be heard and the dashro carriage turned towards it, back in business!