Ragen slipped from the saddle, taking his night satchel, spear and shield. ‘Stake the horses and put up circles. I’ll be back before dark.’
Elissa pointed to the satchel. ‘If you’ll be back before dark, why are you taking your weapons and portable circle?’
‘Common sense,’ Ragen said.
Elissa crossed her arms.
Ragen sighed. ‘I’ll leave markers. Circle the horses and catch up. We’ve only got a few hours of sunlight left.’
Ragen smacked another mosquito, biting down the curse on his lips, lest he give away their position with his shout. The trail had not been easy to find, but their quarry was in a hurry, and the muck of the bog left undeniable prints. The shoes had mismatched treads, but they were consistent with a teenage boy.
It still wasn’t proof, but Ragen wanted to believe.
‘I’ll admit I thought Messengering glamorous from the warmth of our manse,’ Elissa slapped a mosquito drinking deeply from the back of her hand. ‘I was even jealous, sometimes, when you talked of cities and sights.’
‘It’s the glamour that makes the Jongleur’s songs,’ Ragen said. ‘They never add a verse for mosquitoes.’
‘Or slogging through muck until your boots are soaked through,’ Elissa agreed. ‘Feels like I’m walking on two blocks of ice.’
‘Head back to the horses and dry off,’ Ragen said. ‘I’ll be along soon.’
‘Come with me,’ Elissa said. ‘We can look more in the morning. No reason to cut it close to dark. If that was Briar, he’s got a safe place to hide for the night, or he wouldn’t have lasted this long.’
A fat mosquito landed on Ragen’s nose. He struck it instinctively, effectively punching himself in the face. Elissa put a hand over her mouth, hiding a smirk. As the pain subsided, Ragen blew out a long breath. ‘Ay, maybe you’re right. We’ll head back, though I’m not convinced the bog demons are likely to be any worse than these corespawned mosquitoes.’
Elissa looked around, amusement fading from her face. ‘You do know which way is back in all this fog?’
Ragen smirked, pointing. ‘I may be fat and grey, but the first thing you learn as a Messenger is to point north even if you’re piss drunk and spun in a circle.’
‘Charming,’ Elissa said.
Ragen started back to their camp, but stumbled as his boot slipped into a sinkhole. He pitched forwards as pain blossomed in his ankle.
‘Corespawned ripping demonshit!’ Ragen screamed.
Elissa was by his side in an instant. ‘Keep calm.’ She dug in the mud to free his ankle, but suction held the boot fast. Ragen screamed again as she pulled his foot free of it, hauling him onto a solid mass of relatively dry peat.
Ragen took a deep breath, flexing the foot experimentally. The dull, throbbing pain flared again with the movement, but everything moved as it was supposed to. ‘I don’t think it’s broken. Find something to bind it, and I should be able to limp back to camp.’
The words had more confidence than he felt, but Elissa took them at face value, taking the riding scarf from her shoulders and wrapping the ankle tight before it could swell. She dug Ragen’s boot out of the muck and he bit down hard on a stick as he pulled it back on. She took the night satchel and his shield, leaving the spear for him to lean on.
He limped on for some distance, but they were deeper in the bog than he realized, and the pain grew with every step. At last he could stand it no more.
‘I need a moment to rest,’ he said, collapsing onto a rotted stump.
Elissa had given him space for pride, but now she moved in quickly. ‘You’re bathed in sweat. We need to get rid of that armour.’
Ragen shook his head. ‘This was my father’s …’
‘I know,’ Elissa put a hand at the nape of his neck, stroking his sweat-slicked hair. ‘But he wouldn’t want us to die for it.’
Ragen gritted his teeth, but he let her help with the fastenings.
‘We can send the men for it in the morning,’ Elissa said.
‘It’ll be rusted by morning,’ Ragen said as he dropped the heavy linked shirt into the muck. ‘And I won’t ask any of the men to risk themselves looking for it with an army on the way.’
Ragen took a deep breath and leaned on his spear to stand. Admittedly, it was easier without forty pounds of metal on his back. He began to hope they would make it back to camp with time to spare.
But his ankle howled with every step, the pain worsening as it swelled inside the tough leather of his boot. They would have to cut it off.
First my armour, now my favourite boots, Ragen thought. Then he took another step and his ankle gave out completely, pitching him back onto the ground.
Suddenly the boots were the least of his problems. He looked to Elissa, wondering if they would die here, alone in this Creator-forsaken bog, for a boy who might not exist.
He expected to see fear in her eyes, but Elissa only huffed and cast her eyes about, spotting a wide peat flat amidst the endless streams of the bog. She nodded in satisfaction, and moved to Ragen, putting his arm around her shoulders.
‘What are you doing?’ Ragen asked.
‘You’re not going to get much further on that ankle, and I can’t carry you,’ Elissa said. ‘I’ll help you to that flat, and then set up the circle around us.’
‘You could—’ Ragen began.
‘I’m being patient with you Ragen,’ Elissa said, ‘but Creator my witness, if you so much as hint that I should leave my injured husband in the swamp to try and save myself, you’ll be wishing the demons got you before I’m through.’
Ragen felt too drained to argue. It took all his energy to stumble to the flat. By the time they made it, he was leaning almost his full weight on her, but Elissa bore it without complaint, setting him in the centre of the flat and taking out his emergency circle. It would be a tight fit, but enough to ward off the demons for the night.
The ground was uneven and damp, hardly ideal, but Elissa moved with assurance, laying the circle. Ragen managed to pull himself into a sitting position at its centre and started work building a fire.
It was going to be a long night.
Ragen stared into the gloom. The light filtering through the fog was dim now, the shadows long and deep. If the sun had not dipped completely below the horizon, it soon would.
‘I’ve done the best I could,’ Elissa said, coming over to him. The portable circle was ten feet in diameter, but the island of peat wasn’t quite so large and sloped sharply on one end.
While Elissa worked to lay the circle, Ragen cut blocks of peat for her to use in keeping the wardplates level with one another. Several rested on little pillars of the packed moss. Two stood in a stream like bridge supports. Another sat upon a sculpted ledge that hung precariously over a sinkhole. Others, planted on even ground, had muddy water welling up around them.
Individually, the problems were minor, but a series of subtle shifts in alignment could play havoc with a portable circle. The wards would still function, protecting their immediate vicinity, but Ragen and Elissa’s lives depended on the web the magic wove as the wards linked together, their lines of power forming a dome of protection around them.
‘You did masterfully,’ Ragen said. ‘If we get back to Miln, you’ll receive a medal from the Warder’s Guild.’
Elissa smirked. ‘I hear the Guildmaster gives those to all the Warders he sleeps with.’
‘Only the ones that save my life.’ Ragen got slowly to his feet. The rest had done him some good, as had the pinch of bitter stiffroot powder he had washed down. The pain was numbed, and the swelling less, now. He was in no position to run, but their lives might depend on swift action the first time a demon tested the wards.
There would be holes in the net, but there were too many factors at play to guess them precisely. But when a coreling struck the circle, the wards would leach some of the creature’s magic and there would be a flare of power through the net.
It would be gone in an instant, li
ke lightning forking in a cloudy sky, but it would be enough for them – and the demons – to see the gaps.
If the gaps were small, or easily defensible, they would see the dawn. If not, Ragen would get to put his warded spear to use, fending the demons off until Elissa could adjust the plates.
‘Any minute, now,’ he said.
Elissa nodded, and again Ragen marvelled at the steel in her eyes. He had thought just the sight of a demon would be too much for her, but she was as calm as any Messenger.
The eye in Ragen’s mind opened, flashing images of a lifetime on the road together, instead of countless months spent apart. A few other Messengers did it, but Elissa had been royal born, and it had been unthinkable.
His eyes began to tear, thinking of all those wasted years. Elissa saw and brushed them aside with a gentle hand. ‘It will be all right. A year from now we’ll be back in the warding shop, bickering over how I mother poor Briar.’
He smiled, loving her more than he could say.
But then a bog demon came hurtling out of the fog, and the net flashed to life. Elissa’s eyes snapped to the net, searching for gaps, but Ragen’s attention was held by the demon. The coreling should have been thrown back by the rebounding magic, but it wasn’t. Its claws whined across the wardnet with the sound of a thousand fingernails on slate, magic sparking and crackling in their wake.
‘The whole circle’s weak,’ Elissa said. The net remained illuminated like the filament of a lectric bulb while the demon touched it, reflecting brightly off the surrounding fog.
They scanned the lines quickly, finding several gaps. One would allow a coreling to tunnel under the circle – easily done in the soft peat – but demons were not known for their cleverness, and might miss it.
Most of the others were too small for a demon to fit through, but with the clawing bog demon keeping the net illuminated, there was a map to the large ones every coreling in the area could follow.
The biggest danger was above their heads. The web should have spun a dome of protection over them, but with so many of the plates out of alignment, it veered at angles, sometimes inwards, sometimes out. The result was a jagged gap two feet wide practically right above them.
‘Ragen!’ Elissa snapped him out of contemplation, pointing.
Two more bog demons emerged from the glowing mist. Overhead there was a shriek. The flashing wardlight had caught the attention of wind demons, as well.
One of the demons struck at the wardnet, but the plates there aligned properly. It was thrown back, leaving a deep dent in the peat a dozen feet away.
Ragen smirked, but it was short-lived as the other demon’s claws skidded across the forbiddance, catching fast on an open seam. Elissa shrieked and leapt back as it thrust a long, spindly arm through the gap, talons closing mere inches from her face.
But the flaring lines of power remained impassable, and the demon was held fast at the shoulder. It croaked in pain as magic buzzed and crackled, sending shocks through its body, but with human prey in sight it did not give up, straining against the magic with every fibre of its being.
A ten-foot circle was large enough if it was working properly, but if demons could reach at them from all sides, the safe space shrank to almost nothing.
‘It’s stuck,’ Elissa said, catching her breath. ‘It won’t get through.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Ragen said. ‘This racket will lure every demon for miles. They’ll break the circle with sheer weight of numbers.’
‘What can we do?’ Elissa asked. ‘I can’t adjust the plates with it swiping like that.’
Ragen lifted his spear, meeting the bog demon’s huge, lidless eyes with a cold stare. The coreling clawed the air impotently, struggling to reach him. ‘I’ll just have to ask it to quieten down.’
In one smooth movement, he stomped forwards, thrusting his spear. His ankle exploded with pain, but it was a distant thing, like a flash of light in the distance. In his mind, there was only the demon and the spear.
The wards formed an impenetrable barrier for the demon, but for the spear it was only air. A bog demon’s tough, slimy skin could turn almost any thrust, but the wards Arlen had carved on the spearhead flared, and it punched clear through the demon’s chest.
Power shocked up the shaft and into his arm, jolting him with magic. Arlen had spoken of the effect, but Ragen had never felt it himself.
The tales failed to do it justice. Strength surged through Ragen’s muscles, blasting away fatigue. The pain in his ankle faded, allowing him to put weight on it again.
He understood now Arlen’s addiction to fighting demons. The demon croaked in pain, flailing at him, but Ragen was fast and agile like he had never been, easily dodging the hooked claws. With the magic coursing through him he felt euphoric, immortal. They would survive the night, even if he had to kill every coreling in the bog.
It was with reluctance that he tried to pull the spear free. The weapon was caught fast, but Ragen worked his powerful arms, slamming it into the wardnet over and over until the spearhead popped free and the demon fell back, dead.
Night, Ragen said, feeling his stomach drop. I just killed a ripping demon. Relan had told him the dal’Sharum did this every night, but until this very moment, a part of him had not believed it.
The commotion had drawn more of the creatures. They quickly surrounded the weakened circle, jostling one another for position as they tested the wards.
One found another gap and stuck an arm through, but before Ragen could react, two of its fellows leapt on it, killing the demon and gnawing its arm until one end dropped lifelessly into the circle.
Elissa turned from the sight, and even Ragen felt his stomach churn. The two demons then turned on each other, fighting for access to the gap in the wards. Two other demons found open seams, and now there were grasping talons on all sides.
Ragen snatched up his shield and set his feet, thrusting into any demon that got too close to a gap. The wards on the spear were hungry, tearing into coreling flesh with a sizzling spray of ichor, illuminated in the wardlight. But not every blow was a killing one, and the magic jolting through him was just a taste of what coursed through their veins. Many fell back only to recover a few moments later and return to the press.
He moved back to the tiny island of safety at the circle’s centre to catch his breath. Ragen still felt strong, the pain in his ankle now just a dull throb, but the euphoria had faded and reality set in. He would fight to his last breath, but there were too many demons, and likely more on the way.
They were going to die.
Unable to get close to the crowded circle, one bog demon leapt atop the back of another and sprang high, hooked claws catching the edge of the jagged gap in the wards above. Magic spiderwebbed through the air as it dragged itself to the opening. The demon coughed a thick spray of bogspit into the circle as it readied itself to pounce.
Ragen wrapped an arm around Elissa, pulling her close as he threw up his shield. There was a thump and crackle as the glob of bogspit rebounded off the wards, spattering in every direction. He swept the shield aside, hurling his spear at the demon before it could drop into the circle.
The moment the weapon left his hand, Ragen knew it was a mistake. The spear took the coreling full in the chest, but the demon took the weapon with it as it fell back, landing dead a dozen feet from the circle.
Bogspit droplets clung to their clothes like snot, already beginning to smoke and burn, but with talons grasping at them from all around, it was the least of their problems. They huddled close, turning slowly as they hid behind the scant protection of the shield.
The entire wardnet shook. Ragen’s tendons clenched as he followed the distortion back to its point of origin. Bogspit had struck the taut rope between the wardplates resting on the pillars in the stream. It was smoking, and any second …
The rope snapped, and an entire quadrant of the circle fell away. The corelings tensed their muscles to spring for the gap, fully prepared to claw their
brethren out of the way to be the first to enter.
‘Get ready to run,’ Ragen said.
‘Run where?’ Elissa demanded.
‘For the spear,’ Ragen said. ‘It’s our only hope now. I’ll shield rush the first to come through the gap, throw it back into the others. That should distract them.’
‘I don’t know how to use a spear,’ Elissa said.
‘The point goes in the demon,’ Ragen said. ‘It’s hardly wardcraft.’
The biggest of the demons shoved to the fore of the press, launching itself through the gap. Ragen set his feet, ready to stop it fast with the warded shield, fully aware of the futility of it all.
A sudden roar filled the night, freezing the bog demons in place. Ragen was not reassured. It was a sound he knew well. The approaching rock demon might keep the bog demons at bay, but only so it could kill them itself.
But what was a rock demon doing in ripping Bogton of all places? They were common enough in Miln, but rock demons needed a large, natural facing of stone to rise to the surface – not something often found in the Laktonian wetlands.
The roar came again, closer, but this time there was something … off about it. A resonance he had never before heard in the familiar cry. A reverberation not to be heard in a swamp.
He caught the orange glow of a flame demon in the fog, growing brighter. As if a knot of bog demons and an angry rock weren’t enough.
The flame demon charged an active part of the circle, but the coreling was not stopped by the wards as it burst from the fog, mouth glowing with orange flame as it roared.
Ragen and Elissa froze, but the demon swept past them with a trail of choking smoke. It leapt in front of the gap, belching fire and smoke at the confused bog demons.
‘That’s not a demon,’ Elissa said.
Ragen’s eyes widened. What he had taken at first for a flame demon was a boy not yet in his full growth, clad in mismatched rags and a thick coating of swamp muck. On his back was a round Sharum’s shield and in one hand he held a bundle of hogroot stalks, the end burning with an oily, pungent smoke. He swept the torch back and forth, creating a wall of fumes. In his other hand he held a sheet of bark curled into a cone. As Ragen watched, he put his lips to the small end, letting out an impressive imitation of a rock demon’s roar.
Messenger’s Legacy Page 7