She stepped away from him then, down the path toward the swamp. The mangled corpse had been covered from sight. She averted her gaze from the telltale bundle and instead scanned the area—mud and grass, knobbly trees and weed-choked water. Behind her, Raske ordered his men to look alert. The group fanned out.
Inge saw nothing. It was a futile quest.
“Over there!” one of the soldiers called. She whipped around to find him pointing toward the center of the mire. The water bubbled and churned, boiling hot in the middle of a clammy swamp.
She had thrown off her cloak and was knee-deep in the marsh before Raske caught up to her. He grasped her arm but said nothing, torn between letting her go to the sword and keeping her safe on the shore.
“Water won’t stop the spell,” she told him. “I’m the only one who can save it. Do you want it destroyed, or do we take it back to the king?” Logic demanded that she rescue her father’s work. Instinct whispered to let it melt away in the swamp. The decision was not hers to make, though. She would abide by Colonel Raske’s words.
He hesitated, more like an untrained youth in that moment than a seasoned soldier. He looked lost, as though he did not know which path to take.
Inge’s heart broke for him, for that uncharacteristic indecision with which he battled. “Colonel?” she asked.
Impulsively he released her arm. “Fetch it.”
She needed no further prompt. Resolutely she plunged into the frigid water, waist-deep, chest-deep. The rocks beneath her feet were slick, slimy as she waded through the scum to the bubbling ripples. The water went from icy to cold to lukewarm to hot. Through its cloudy depths, Inge caught sight of a blazing white hilt. The sword stood erect under the churning surface, as though someone had thrown it like a spear into the mire. She surged forward to grasp it before it was too late.
Her fingers closed around the hilt. The heat of the spell snuffed out with her touch, and the churning water stilled. Inge wrenched the blade up from the rocks between which it was lodged.
At the same instant, an iron grip clamped around her leg and dragged her down beneath the surface.
Chapter 13: In the Mire
Inge thrashed wildly, but to no avail. The grip around her leg pulled her through the murky waters down, down to the deepest part of the swamp, as though she was nothing more significant than a piece of seaweed dragged along behind a boat. The sword in her grip was useless, too cumbersome to wield as she traveled through the mire. Her lungs threatened to burst. Swamp water clotted her nose and icy blackness surrounded her.
Abruptly the creature stopped. Inge twisted Captain Bergstrom’s sword around, desperate to free herself. The edge of the blade collided with flesh; the grip on her leg released her to float upward. She kicked her feet and broke through the surface of the water with a shuddering, life-saving gasp.
The next moment, she wished that she had drowned.
The smell of death and decay pressed thick around her, and darkness blinded her sight. She had not surfaced in the swamp. She was still under it, in a cavern of some sort, trapped with fetid air and an ominous something lurking in the depths beneath her.
It would have been better to die.
In panic she lashed out, her imagination conjuring a thousand enemies at once. Her hand struck rock, an outcropping above the surface. With a despairing sob, she cast Bergstrom’s sword atop the pile and scrambled up after it. The darkness pressed down upon her, suffocating her with its closeness. One hand fell upon something slick and rotten. She drew back her fingers as though burned. There were bones here—beneath her, around her, remnants of meals past. She tried to focus her mind beyond them, but all she could envision was her death within that shroud of putrid ruin.
A movement in the water caught her ears. She snatched up Bergstrom’s sword and stood on shaking legs, backing away from the noise. The blade was too heavy for her to wield with anything more than clumsy desperation. Terror in her throat, she moved her feet carefully back, wary that the ground might drop into the foul waters again. Blindly she flailed one arm behind herself and discovered the cavern’s wall, rough-hewn rock covered with slime. It was a refuge of sorts, something to lean against. Her quick, short breaths punctuated the stillness around her.
From the waters issued a low, feral growl.
Inge’s skin crawled as she tightened her grip on the sword. There was no hope for her here, in the blackness of this unholy pit. She had only to wait for death, knowing that it could come at any moment.
The water sloshed. Something slithered through it toward her, sprang from its depths to the rocky ledge on which she stood, and then—
Light shot through the water and burst into the cavern, blinding as the sun at noonday. Inge cringed from the sudden brightness. The creature shrieked in agony. From the corner of her eye she saw it fling its dark shape back into the inky depths.
The unnatural ball of light rose higher, illuminating the space around her. In sick wonder Inge observed her prison. Small, rocky islands hunched against the gleaming pool, littered with rotting animal carcasses. Some of the kills had been picked clean of their flesh, the bones a dank, moldering brown in their clammy tomb. The filthy water lapped against the stones, leaving behind a layer of scum. In the far corner, a nest sheltered several huge, strange globules. She could see shapes within, like overgrown tadpoles ready to hatch from their eggs.
The surface of the water broke, startling her.
“Ingrid!” Colonel Raske shook his head and blinked, banishing swamp remnants from his eyes even as he sought for any sign of her.
“It’s in the water!” she called to him. “Get out! It jumped back into the water!”
He trained upon her voice and surged forward to the rocks. Inge dropped the sword to help him climb up, wary of the predator’s return.
As soon as Raske emerged, he gripped her by the shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
He inspected her with wide, searching eyes. Her leg was bleeding, a gash that extended across her calf toward her ankle. The creature had clawed her there when it let go, and she had not even realized it, so consumed with terror she had been. She wanted to claim that she was fine, but the words would not come.
Raske saw the wound, saw that she was otherwise unharmed, and quickly turned away to seek the creature that had caused the injury.
“That light is yours?” Inge managed to ask.
“Magic is good for something. You said it went back into the water?” He uttered a phrase then, words she did not understand. A second ball of light formed at his fingertips. He flung it into the murky depths, and the shadows below the surface receded into a hazy green. Across the cavern, the hidden creature thrashed in violent protest.
Swiftly, Raske swept up the sword Inge had dropped. He was none too soon. The monster lunged from the morass. Raske met it with the edge of Bergstrom’s sword, slashed across its hide, and sent it back into the abyss.
“Sensitive to light but immune to metal,” he muttered under his breath, annoyed.
“How can we escape?” Inge asked.
“There’s no sure escape as long as it’s alive. Even if there were, I’m duty-bound to dispose of it. What’s that there across the cavern?” He pointed to the globules.
“It’s a nest, isn’t it?” Inge replied. “There are more of them there, waiting to hatch.”
“Do you suppose fire can kill them before they’re fully formed?” Another strange phrase tumbled from his mouth. This time a ball of flames erupted at his fingertips. He lobbed it toward the nest. The fire splattered and spread. Within their translucent globes, the half-formed creatures writhed and shrieked.
A second shriek burst from the mire. The creature shot from the depths, spewing water across the flames. It pounced and rolled and beat at the fire to put it out, screaming in fury. Its voice raised a terrible chorus with the muffled shrieks of its dying young.
“Ingrid, can you swim?” Colonel Raske inquired, his eyes trained upon the thrashing monster.
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“What? Yes.”
“Good. There’s a hole down there that’ll lead you back up to the surface. I can illuminate the way to it for you, but not much further.”
“I thought you said there was no escape until that creature was dead,” Inge argued, her heart in her throat.
“It only takes one of us to keep it here.” His breath was ragged. The magic he had used was taking its toll. “Swim free to the shore, to the soldiers there. I left my sword with them. When you reach it, invoke your circle spell again.”
“But—!”
“Ingrid, go!” he commanded. The ball of light at the top of the cavern shot down into the water. She saw the darkness of the hole in its depths. There was no time to question orders. She gulped a full breath and dove into the water, leaving Raske behind to whatever fate awaited him.
A sluggish current pulled through the underwater corridor. She swam against it, through the darkness of the mire. She was a good swimmer, had spent most of her summers in the lake beyond her father’s smithy, but the clear waters there were nothing in comparison with the choking deep around her. Grimly she pressed forward, up, up into the broader, shallower waters of the swamp.
She surfaced with a gasp. Shameful relief flooded her, that she should see the expanse of blue sky overhead again while Colonel Raske remained below in the slick darkness.
Warriors shouted from the shore. Several bounded out to meet her as she waded back to them. Someone threw her cloak around her shoulders.
“Sword—where’s his sword?” she asked, and she searched the shoreline for that item. “Sverthin brenn,” she called the moment she glimpsed it. She lunged and caught its hilt.
Half the soldiers glanced between her and the swamp from which she had just emerged. They were looking for their colonel. He was not coming.
“He sent me out,” Inge whispered, and she hugged the sword protectively. The very fact that Raske had commanded her to invoke her father’s circle spell told her he didn’t plan on returning. He would have brought Bergstrom’s sword back with him instead of guaranteeing its destruction, if there were any chance at all. The first night-walker had met its end by a stroke of luck. Could she hope for another miracle to defeat this second one?
That Colonel Raske might not return seemed completely foreign to the contingent of soldiers. He was something of a monster himself, so it seemed impossible for him to die like this. Captain Bergstrom had already fallen victim to this creature, though. Legendary skills notwithstanding, Raske was still only a man.
They settled one by one onto the sloping ground by the shore, as though in a daze. The sun had crossed the meridian and beat its full heat upon them now. They would need to return to the castle soon, to give Bergstrom’s remains their proper honor, to give Raske his hero’s memorial. And yet, no one moved. Inge instinctively wanted to stay until what little hope she had was snuffed out completely. She guessed that the others were the same.
Half an hour or more passed. The circle spell had long since run its course. Captain Bergstrom’s blade was gone.
Water sloshed and bubbled at the swamp’s center. A figure broke the surface and threw back its head to catch a lungful of air. Soldiers leapt to their feet, straining their eyes to discover whether this was friend or foe.
Colonel Raske, man of legends, looked little the worse for wear for his ordeal. He swam to where his feet touched the ground. Then, he straightened his back and strode from the water with utmost dignity. Inge gaped up at him as he towered over her, dripping wet.
“My sword,” he prompted. Wide-eyed, she gave it to him. “We must return to the castle and the king,” he called to the soldiers.
“What about the monster?” Inge asked as she scrambled to her feet.
“Destroyed, along with its nest.”
She kept pace beside him, back to the horses. “B-but—how?”
He spared her a wry glance. “I shoved a melting piece of metal through its mouth into its brain.” He showed her one gloved hand, where the leather had been burned through. “Lucky for me that Dagmar’s taught me a spell that protects from fire.”
Inge stopped short. “Was that your plan all along? I thought you were dead!”
Raske frowned. “Why? I told you it was my duty to destroy the creature. What good would it’ve done to die in the process?”
Sheer confidence enveloped him—not arrogance or pride, but a simple assurance that he could accomplish anything he set out to do because he was just that skilled. Suddenly she understood why the army at large referred to him as the Demon Scourge. He was terrifying, a warrior so capable that he carried no fear even in the direst of circumstances.
And she, foolish girl, had just wasted half an hour mourning him at the swamp’s edge.
His eyes honed in on the torn, angry flesh beneath her ragged trouser leg. “Why have you not bound up your injury?”
Inge’s gaze turned downward as embarrassment rushed up her neck. Steeped in the tumult of her emotions, she had forgotten. “It’s not really bleeding anymore,” she mumbled.
“It’s going to get infected, Ingrid.”
The other soldiers were preparing for departure, not listening to the conversation between their colonel and the adopted prince. Inge felt safe enough to inquire, somewhat cynically, “Why do you keep calling me that? Is it to remind yourself that I’m really a girl?”
“No,” Raske said. “It’s to remind you. Maybe one day it’ll take root and you won’t keep tumbling into danger.”
That was the height of injustice. “I know what I am! If I have to act otherwise, it’s King Halvard’s fault!”
He scoffed and promptly changed the subject. “Sit down. I’ll bind your leg for the journey back. We’ll have a doctor treat it when we reach the castle.”
“I can bind it myself.”
“Sit,” he said again, and the firmness of his voice made her obey.
The first line of soldiers started back with Captain Bergstrom’s remains. Raske, as though he had all the time in the world, patiently cleaned the blood and debris from Inge’s calf and then wrapped it with a gentleness she had not expected. She did her best not to squirm, not to watch his long, calloused fingers at work, not to think about his careful touch against her skin. He always looked down on her, always treated her like a child, always witnessed the very worst of her. She wanted to despise him in return, to push him away and keep him at arm’s length or more.
She wanted to, but that wasn’t reality. Reality was the despair she had felt sitting at the swamp’s edge, fully expecting that she would never see him again.
With growing dismay, she at last understood the feelings that had taken root in her heart. Raske was the only person in this strange twist of her life who mattered. She didn’t want him to look down on her. She wanted him to see her as an equal.
But that was impossible. He was a warrior of celebrated skill. She had been thrust into playing the part of a boy. It wasn’t King Halvard’s mad whim that had brought her to this, either. Even before becoming Prince Inge, she had looked like a boy, had talked like a boy, had acted like a boy. Why had she been in the forest that first morning, hair cropped close to her head, her brother’s over-large clothing upon her, a wooden practice sword in her hand? It was no good wanting more than that boyish image now. She had chosen it for herself.
That’s why Raske had scoffed when she blamed King Halvard for her predicament. He knew as well as she did that her character was of her own making.
Well, she wasn’t going to yearn for a man she could never have, of that she was determined.
She would have jerked her leg from his grasp the instant he finished binding it, resolved as she was to hold him at a distance, but he suddenly looked up at her, and the intensity of his green eyes scattered her rebellious thoughts like dandelion seeds on a strong wind. In a smooth motion, he reached one hand behind her neck and dragged her forward to kiss her full on the mouth.
“Blame the exhilaration of the moment,
if you must,” he said in answer to her wide-eyed stare. “Against all odds, we are both alive.”
Then, he left her sitting in a stupor.
Most of the soldiers had already started for the castle. The few that still remained had not witnessed this brief, intimate exchange, too busy with their own preparations to depart. Someone brought Inge’s horse to her. Dumbly she climbed into the saddle.
The only thing she could later remember of her return to the castle was her view of Colonel Raske’s back as he urged his horse through the sprawling line of soldiers ahead of her. Inge remained near the end of the company, her heart in turmoil, but in a very different turmoil than it had suffered only a half-hour before.
Chapter 14: Promotion
“Do you see this?”
Dagmar pointed to a piece of the armor that sat upon the table in the king’s council chambers. King Halvard and Colonel Raske both frowned as they inspected it.
“Where?” Halvard asked. “What am I looking at?”
“Here, on the edge where the pauldron would have overlapped the breastplate—do you see this residue?”
Halvard leaned in for a closer look. Raske had noticed the thin streak of brownish film and assumed it was blood. The armor was filthy, bearing ample evidence that the night-walker had savaged and picked its prey from within this metal shell. Why Dagmar might hone in on one particular bit of gore eluded him.
“What is it?” the king inquired.
“It’s not blood, and it’s not earth,” Dagmar replied.
Raske looked up in surprise. Her expression remained shuttered.
“I didn’t ask what it wasn’t,” said King Halvard.
“I don’t know what it is, your Majesty.” Dagmar dipped one finger in the substance, which was tacky to her touch. Raske’s stomach turned when she first sniffed it and then gingerly tasted it. “Messy business,” she uttered as she wiped her hand clean on a spare cloth. “It has honey it in, among other things.”
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