Not for the first time, Raven wished she’d never heard of Blackrot Mire.
She couldn’t claim there’d been no warning. She’d been forced to dismount even before they’d reached the outermost trees of the mire. The marshy ground was too treacherous, and made worse by the rain still lashing down. She’d considered leaving Meara behind altogether and spare her the ordeal, but discarded the idea as there was no way of knowing from which direction she’d be leaving the mire after her business was concluded.
The animal was nothing if not stoic and seemed to bear the gruelling laboriousness of their slog through the knee-deep sludge far better than she. Though the mare didn’t have boots to worry about losing, Raven reflected bitterly.
At least the storm had finally relented. The ferocious downpour had subsided into a light, yet insistent drizzle. As she now hauled herself up from the muck, Raven found she welcomed it, as it served to at least wash some of the filth from her clothes.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said, taking Meara’s reins once more.
There must be a safe path through the mire, Raven thought as their trudge through the slop continued. Every so often they would scale a hump of dry earth that meandered tantalisingly through the trees. But every time it would end abruptly surrounded by pools of dirty water. She still followed them every time in the hope might lead them somewhere useful, but each time it was in vain. Worse, because these ridges didn’t follow a straight path it wasn’t long before she was hopelessly lost. She’d have been more worried if not for the fact that she hadn’t known where she needed to go to begin with.
The one thing you could say about Blackrot Mire, other than it was without doubt the dreariest, dirtiest, most depressing place Raven had ever been, up to and including the nightmarish Spiritwood, was that it was aptly named. Everywhere she looked, the trunks of the trees were thick with ash-grey mould, spotted in places with bright red or orange pustules. Thick strands of some other kind of growth hung down from the branches, while from fallen logs lying half-covered in the muck sprouted bunches of some pale-brown fungus. An overwhelming sense of decay seemed to permeate the entire place, sapping the energy from her legs as effectively as the cloying mud.
Raven was so engrossed in her own personal misery that when the voice spoke she jumped, lost her footing and only narrowly avoided plunging into the bog a second time.
“Hail, stranger!” the voice boomed cheerfully. “Would it not be better to use the path?”
Raven looked up. And up. A man towered over her, her head barely rising to the level of his waist. While he was undoubtedly tall, however, this was largely to do with the fact he was standing on a raised wooden walkway leading away through the bog.
“Probably,” she conceded. “Although that would have required knowing about it.”
“You’re new around here then?” the man said, as Raven set about pulling herself up from the mud and onto the walkway. When she slipped, he offered his hand. She took it gladly and he hauled her clear of the mire.
“You could say that.” Now that she was standing on dry ground, Raven looked more closely at her erstwhile saviour. He was tall, as she’d surmised, and had the powerful frame of one accustomed to hard labour. Much of his face was hidden beneath a brown, wiry beard, which currently was parted in a bemused smile. Over the top of his clothes he wore a long, waxed coat that repelled the rain, of which she was immediately jealous. “Is it so obvious?”
He shrugged. “Only because folk from Firbank know to take the path through the mire.”
Raven glanced down at the walkway. It had been constructed from wooden planks secured by posts driven deep into the dark ooze. Like everything else in this place they were damp and rotten in places, though the path itself looked strong enough to bear her weight. Above all, it would keep her dry. “Who built it, anyway?”
“A few of the townsfolk,” he said. “My father was one. It’s a bit worse for wear these days, but still serves its purpose. That’s craftsmanship for you,” he added, with just a hint of pride.
Raven felt a strange sense of unreality at meeting another human being in this place at this time. Was she being followed? The man was not outwardly threatening, but that meant little enough. “What are you doing out here?” She brushed a hand against her hip, reassuring herself that her sword still hung there, while trying to make the movement appear as casual as possible.
The man didn’t appear to notice. “There’s an old widow who lives in these parts. I come out this way every few weeks, bringing food and other supplies.” He patted a knapsack hanging from one shoulder. “Speaking of which, we should get going, before the rain starts again.”
“I didn’t realise it had stopped,” Raven said bitterly. All the same, she knew what he meant. Set against the savage downpour the current drizzle was like a summer’s day in comparison.
The man set off along the path, and after a moment Raven gathered up Meara’s reins again and followed. There didn’t seem a good reason not to, and they were headed the same way. “It’s Raven, by the way,” she offered, after a minute went by in silence.
“Ahuh.” He didn’t sound terribly interested, and several seconds went by before he replied in kind. “Bram.”
“You didn’t ask me why I’m here,” she said, nettled by his disinterest but unable to explain quite why.
“Hm?”
“It’s just that if I came across someone soaked to the skin and covered with mud from head to foot, staggering through a swamp in the middle of nowhere during a storm, I’d be curious to find out why.”
“Don’t need to ask why.” Bram turned and smiled knowingly. “You’re looking for Black Aggy.”
“What?” Raven’s hand snaked down to the pommel of her sword. But once again it went unnoticed.
“Isn’t that what all you young’uns come here looking for?” He shook his head. “Love potion, is it? Something to keep from falling with child, perhaps?” He saw Raven’s stony expression and chuckled. “Don’t worry. She don’t mind having you all knocking on her door, so why should I? Just don’t be surprised if she don’t match up to the stories you’ve heard.”
“Are you saying she’s not a witch?”
Bram looked round sharply. “You shouldn’t say such things. Not now, leastways. You never know who’s listening.” He peered off into the trees, as if expecting a gang of witch-hunters to spring out from the ooze. Once he was satisfied they were alone, he continued in a lower voice. “Aggy was a midwife by trade, long ago. She don’t get around much now, but she still knows a thing or two.”
“But why live out here?” It didn’t make sense. “If there’s a fouler place in the Empire I’d like to see it.” She thought a moment. “Actually, no. I really wouldn’t.”
“It wasn’t always like this,” he said. “Twenty, thirty years ago this was a nice little forest with a river running through the middle of it. Then one day something happened. Maybe there was a rockslide in the mountains that dammed the river, or maybe it just changed course. Whatever it was, over time it turned into what you see now. Most folks moved away, not that there were many to begin with. Karl and Aggy stayed put, too old and stubborn to leave. Then about fifteen years ago Karl passed on and Aggy was older and stubborner, so here she stayed.”
They walked in silence for another minute or two. The only sounds were the plodding of their feet on the planks, the splosh of Meara’s feet in the water and the hiss of the rain. “How do you know all this?” Raven asked eventually.
“My da was friends with Karl, woodcutters both. I took up the family business so to speak.” He twitched aside his coat, revealing a single-bladed axe hanging from his belt. “Ma and da lived here for a time, but left when I was still young. When Karl died he still came up here to make sure Aggy was keeping all right. Then when my da followed him a few years past, I took it on myself.”
“That’s... nice of you.”
Bram waved a hand dismissively. “Folk have to stick together, d
on’t they? Life’s hard enough as it is.”
As they plodded onwards, Raven’s thoughts were in turmoil. She’d already been set on edge by the sight of the weapon, even though Bram had revealed it matter-of-factly rather than as a threat. However, while he seemed friendly enough, there was a world of difference between a stranger who stopped to help you out of a swamp, and an armed stranger who’d done so. She let him walk several paces ahead, her free hand resting on the grip of her sword.
Then there was his story. Did she believe what he told her about Aggy? He had no reason to lie, that she knew of anyway. And if he told the truth, then what was she to do? The trail had led her to this place and nowhere else. Did she dare return to the duke empty-handed? Did she dare not?
These same thoughts went round and round her head, until all of a sudden Bram stopped. He pointed ahead into the murk. “We’re here.”
* * *
It had been a house, once. Raven was uncertain what it was now. It had the basic features; four walls, a door that opened onto a narrow, covered veranda leading down to the edge of the plashy ground. Further, it had a roof, but it was here primarily that that structure’s loose resemblance to a house began to fray.
Like everything else in this godsforsaken mire, the thatch had rotted until even to call it such was idle fantasy. Covering the roof now was a foetid mass of black and brown, flecked with spots of bright orange and interspersed with patches of flourishing moss. Large, pale mushrooms of the kind Raven had seen elsewhere also sprouted from the morass, but here the cups were grown as large as serving platters.
Even from several dozen feet away she could smell the damp emanating from the building. It was as if the marsh itself had risen up and been made solid which, for all she knew, was precisely what had happened.
Raven eyed it with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. “I can’t think why anyone would think her a witch.”
Bram grunted. “It’s seen better days, true enough. Da always meant to come down and fix it up, but...” He waved a hand airily, indicating the ephemeral nature of such plans. “You know how it is.”
Raven stared again at the woebegone structure. “I can’t imagine living in such a place.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” said Bram with forced jollity. “Aggy keeps it cosy enough inside-”
Raven raised a hand to silence him. “Did you hear that?” She stopped on the path, straining to hear.
“What-” he began.
“Ssh!”
When all was quiet, she heard the sound again, more clearly this time. It was low and so faint that it had entered her consciousness without passing through her ears first. It was telegraphed directly to her spine, a sound that reached down to whatever part of us remains from our primal ancestors – one that would have caused them to shiver in the night and draw closer to their fires.
A growl.
As it reached them, Raven’s hand reached instinctively for her sword, sliding it free of its scabbard. But the woodsman laughed.
“Put that away lass,” he said. “That’s just Wolfy.”
“Wolfy?” she repeated, frowning.
“Aye, Aggy’s dog. A big mutt, grey as smoke. He can look a bit fierce, I grant you, but he’s a softy really.”
They reached the veranda. The sound was louder here, and seemed to vibrate through the wooden planks. Bram took another step and placed his hand upon the door-handle. “He can be a bit funny about strangers, so best if I go in first and let them both know they’ve another visitor.”
“I wouldn’t do that...”
The woodsman smiled and shook his head at this display of feminine anxiety. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said, pushing the door open.
He disappeared inside, the door closing behind him with a soft click. As it did so, something at the edge of Raven’s vision made her turn her head. A dark streak led across the boards, away to the edge of the mire. Raven followed it, her feet heavy.
Where the porch met the marsh, the streak became a splash, brown droplets radiating outwards. Just beyond it, a shape in the water caught her eye. She reached out, barely noticing the chill as her fingers broke the surface. Even before she lifted the object out from the pool, she knew what it would be. She was not disappointed.
The head of a hound, cold and stiff, the neck a ragged wound where it had been torn from its body. Though its fur was matted with gore and mud, its colour could still be made out. Grey.
Raven let the grisly object fall back into the mire with a splash. She jumped up and ran back to the door. “Bram!”
Just then a man’s scream pierced the eerie silence, followed by a crash as if something heavy had been flung against the wall from within. Another yell, followed by a snarl that made Raven’s blood turn to ice in her veins. Her hand, reaching for the door-handle, froze in mid-air. No, she thought. Not here, it can’t-
The door burst open, Bram practically flying through the opening. The bearded woodsman slammed it shut then threw his weight against it. His eyes were wide in shock, his face ashen, while the waxed coat, of which Raven had been so envious, hung from him in tatters. His axe was in his hands, held protectively across his chest. As his wild, staring eyes met hers, he uttered just a single word. “Run!”
Then the world went mad.
There was a pounding of feet... large, heavy feet. Then there was an ear-splitting crash as the door flew open again, this time ripped from its hinges. Splinters of wood exploded in all directions. Bram was lifted from his feet and flung into the bog, the remains of the door still pressed to his back like a ridiculous shield.
Standing in the ruined doorframe was a nightmare made flesh. The beast was huge, reaching to Raven’s shoulders, and so broad as to fill the entire opening. Its head was like a bear’s, so much so that at first glance one might assume that is what it was. But its muzzle was elongated and canine in appearance. Slavering jaws lined with razor-sharp teeth as long as one of her fingers hung open in a menacing snarl. Behind the creature’s thick neck its back rose up to powerful shoulders, its haunches a mass of densely packed muscle. Its front legs were each thicker than her own, topped by claws gouging deep ruts into the wooden planks of the veranda.
There were probably few people in the empire who would recognise the beast for what it was, but Raven was one of them. Not that this afforded any comfort or peace of mind.
Bärgeist!
Even before the creature roared, the sound – no, the sheer fury of it – turning her bowels to water, Raven was already running. Her quick reactions likely saved her life. The beast launched itself from the doorway, driven by a terrible, burning rage, but Raven’s head-start meant she’d already put twenty yards between them. She willed her legs to go faster, fighting against the sucking mud, knowing that distance would close with every passing second.
Don’t turn... don’t turn. She knew that doing so was tantamount to suicide. She’d witnessed first-hand the destruction such a beast could wreak, when they’d stumbled across the mutilated remains of a merchant caravan that had attempted to save a handful of silver coins by crossing through the Spiritwood without a hunter escort. Half a dozen men and women had started that journey, and what was left of them and their oxen by the time Raven and her party found them would have barely filled a flour sack.
They’d eventually tracked the creature to its lair, and discovered it was a female nursing a litter of pups, each already as large as a hound. The hunters, led by the chieftain’s son, had butchered them all without pity or remorse. Any sympathy Raven may have felt evaporated at the sight of human skulls among the detritus covering the floor of the stinking den.
And so she fought the urge to look behind. Her hearing, though, was as keen as it had ever been. She heard the frenzied splashing of the beast’s powerful legs charging through the mire, the grunting of its breath as it bore down on its prey.
Raven made for the nearest tree, one of the many gnarled, blackened specimens that littered the marsh. She didn’t climb it –
it was too small to offer even token protection against the baying creature at her heels. Instead as she passed she flung a hand around its trunk, using her momentum to slingshot around and sprint back towards the hut. The beast, heavier by far, shot past the tree in a dark blur, legs still pumping furiously. Fast as they were over open ground, the hulking creatures had difficulty turning when up to their full speed. It was only a momentary respite, she knew... but it was the only one available.
She ran towards a forlorn shape rising from the mud not far from the hut. It was Bram, still half-buried beneath a pile of splintered wood, groaning and trying to push himself to his feet.
Raven grabbed him and hauled him upright. “Into the house!” she shouted. “Go!”
The woodsman aimed a look of terror past her shoulder. “But that thing...”
“It’ll chase me.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” She grabbed him and began steering him back towards the hut. Another roar ripped through the air, surprisingly distant. Meara! she thought. The horse had doubtless bolted at the sight of the bärgeist, distracting it momentarily. She knew it wouldn’t last long. “Wait inside the doorway,” she told him. “Be ready. When I come through, you’d better be swinging this down already.” She grabbed Bram’s axe from the boards where it had been flung and shoved it into his hands. “Otherwise neither one of us will be walking out again.” The woodsman nodded grimly and disappeared through the opening.
Raven risked a glance behind, and saw the beast scything through the water towards her once again. She turned and ran, taking her around the corner of the hut and along its side. As long as I can keep making turns I should be all right, she told herself, hoping fervently it was true.
She wasn’t concerned about Bram; she knew that the creatures instinctively attacked the smallest or weakest prey first. Sure enough, as she reached the rear corner of the hut and jinked suddenly to her right to run alongside its rear wall, from behind came the telltale sounds of the beast in pursuit.
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