~*~
They bolted from the cave, making as little noise as possible.
The sounds of their enemies surprise was quickly replaced by
distinct cries of attack sandwiched between coughs. "Quick, go in now while they're distracted!" one man cried and was echoed by another.
Colby could hear them splashing through the water on their
way into the cave. One man passed so near to Colby that she felt him stir the air at her shoulder in his wake. She held her breath as he passed, stifling the cough that threatened to burst from her lungs at just the wrong time. Xavier gestured at her, and she discovered she could breathe without coughing if she ducked low to the ground and took shallow breaths. In fact, she found it easier to breathe than to move without splashing through the nearly knee-high water of the treacherous swamp, but somehow she managed both.
Her stomach was doing summersaults and her fingers shook
with the power of the sped-up pulse feeding them as her heart sprinted in her chest. She'd never felt so scared, nor so excited in her entire life.
Behind her she could hear their pursuers calling to one another in the cave. It was still filled with smoke and they were having difficulty locating their prey, unaware that the sounds they were hearing were illusionary. She couldn't make out their exact words but the tone still carried. They were frustrated and growing angrier.
The illusion would wear off soon and when it did those already-angry thugs would realize they'd been tricked. The key to surviving past the next hour would be to put a lot of distance between Scholar's men and themselves, and do it while leaving as faint a trail as they could.
As morning wore on they picked their way through the swamp.
They headed in a vaguely western direction because that's where Colby's map and Xavier's experience indicated they'd find the Reptar settlement. They moved with caution, hiding behind scraggly trees,
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and taking care not to splash until they felt certain their pursuers couldn't hear them. At first they didn’t even speak, and Colby contemplated their near escape, well aware they hadn't yet made it out of harm's way.
"That was amazing wasn't it?" She whispered, and could hear the awe in her own voice.
"What was?"
"The magic. I mean, our timing was off a little bit, but it felt incredible to say those words, think about what I wanted to happen and then have it work. It worked Xavier, I cast a spell!"
Xavier smiled over at Colby and nodded. "You sure did. Is magic rare where you come from? It's pretty common here."
Colby thought about her home world of Terricina and smiled.
"No, it's common there too, just not for me. Have you ever cast a spell?"
"Nope. The only thing I've ever cast is the line on my fishing rod. It's the only thing I want to cast too."
"Really? I think magic is," Colby paused, trying to find the right word, then with a self-deprecating grin finished, "magical."
Xavier chuckled and then nodded. "Where did you get the
scrolls if you've never cast a spell before?"
"My mother gave them to me. I think they used to be my
father's, but I'm not sure. Mother is pretty dead-set against mages and magic, but when I insisted on coming here I think she figured I'd need all the help I could get."
Xavier laughed. "I admit, I was wondering why you'd been the one sent on this dangerous errand. Not that I'm not grateful, you've saved my life twice now, it's just..."
"I'm not the adventurer-type. I know. Truthfully I came
because there was no other choice. " Colby paused. "Long story.
Anyway, it was me or no one."
"What's the long story? If you don't mind my asking." Xavier wiped a stream of sweat off his brow with the back of one hand.
"Since we've got a long walk ahead of us."
"I don't even know all the reasons," Colby laughed weakly, short of breath from walking. "Mother is pretty tight-lipped about anything that happened before we—. Well, the thing is, my brother has a magical sword. Once I get the stone from the reptar and fit it into its pommel, the sword should be able to cure him."
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"That's a pretty short long story." Xavier chuckled, apparently completely unsurprised by her revelation about Bayne's sword. Of course, she hadn't told him everything. It was best she keep as many details to herself as she could.
They walked in relative silence for much of the morning.
Swatting at the ever-present blood-sucking insects and occasionally checking the map. The sun was filtered by clouds, bathing the desolate landscape in a bizarre half-light that made everything feel two-dimensional. Their shadows were weak and those of the few scraggly bushes and trees that peppered the marshy terrain were just as lacking, adding to the illusion of flatness. As the sun rose higher, Colby peered over at Xavier.
"How is your chest feeling?"
Her voice sounded unnaturally loud as it broke the silence and Xavier answered her in hushed tones. "It's a little stiff, but not too bad. Whatever you did while I was sleeping seems to have worked a miracle. Another scroll perhaps?"
"All I did was dress it. I was tempted to use a herbal soporific to help you sleep but I wasn't familiar with..." she paused uncomfortably before surging onward, "your race, so I didn't dare use any herbs or spells. What cures one race can kill another."
"Well, I suppose I can add freakish healing to the list of modifications I can thank Scholar for," he replied in a wry tone.
Colby took a couple quick steps to catch up to Xavier so she
could trudge through the ankle-deep water at his side.
"Was it terrible?" she asked, taking her eyes off the uneven ground long enough to look up at his profile.
Xavier stopped and looked down at her. Her curiosity didn't
originate in a morbid place and she hoped that fact showed on her face. It must have because after a long moment he nodded and
looked away. "Yes," he said. "It was terrible."
Colby glanced over her shoulder and started walking once
more. Xavier fell in beside her, obviously lost in thought. She didn't push but walked quietly, listening to the sound of a nearby frog croaking and leaving Xavier to himself.
After a while, he cleared his throat and spoke. "It was terrible.
His men kidnapped me one day when I was out hunting and turned me into this. He was trying to create some sort of super swamp-soldier. He gave me skin hard enough to act like armor and colored to camouflage. He altered my feet until they were webbed and gave
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me tentacles so I could wield several weapons at once. He operated on my eyes too, changing their color and making it so that I can see as well at night as you can during the day."
"And your gills?"
Xavier reached up to touch the slits on the side of his neck.
"They don't work—though Calamyr knows he held me underwater more than once trying to shock them into action."
"I'm sorry," Colby said, her belly sick with sympathy. She laid her hand lightly upon his forearm.
Xavier looked down at her. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
Afternoon gave way to dusk, and a misty, grey gloom settled
over the already desolate land. She and Xavier paused only long enough to take turns relieving themselves in a small thicket of trees and to pull out more dry rations to eat while they walked.
Colby shoved a strand of dark hair that had escaped her braid behind her ear and sighed wearily. Her legs burned from her
exertions and her feet had blistered long ago. Occasionally dirty, stagnant water splashed over the tops of her knee-high boots, soaking her socks and breeches and increasing her discomfort. Every step hurt, only her focus on the rhythmic jingle of the buckles on her pack and the fact Xavier was carrying it kept her going.
Even as the sun set in front of them, they struggled onward.
Colby slipped on a slimy rock once and would have tumbled into the muck but Xavier caught her with one of his tentacles. He held her until she regained her balance and looked into her weary face with concern before letting go.
The moon rode high in the sky when he finally chose to stop.
They found a piece of relatively dry ground where he set her
backpack down with an audible sigh of relief and sat on a nearby rotting log. Colby joined him and pulled her boots off, wincing at the multitude of broken blisters and bloody spots on her feet.
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Hobbling to her pack, she dragged it to the log, and sat down again. She dug around inside until she found a jar of salve then slathered the sharp-smelling ointment over her feet and pulled on a new, clean pair of socks.
"How are your feet?"
Xavier's teeth flashed bright in the moonlight. "They're fine. It takes more than sticks and stone to penetrate my skin."
Colby nodded, and put the jar back into her bag. "Do you think we can risk a fire?"
Xavier shook his head and pointed through the brush back in
the direction they had come. Colby frowned and followed the
direction of his finger with her eyes. At first she saw nothing but the silhouettes of fallen logs, boulders and the dwarf trees of the swamp, then she noticed what he was pointing at and her heart sank.
Across the swamp she saw the unmistakable light of a
campfire.
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Chapter Four
Colby spread her tarp to protect them from the sodden ground
while they rested and insisted on taking first watch. He, in turn, had the unpleasant task of waking her far earlier than he would have liked when he saw the thugs following them had extinguished their fire.
"They are breaking camp Colby, we need to start moving if we're going to stay ahead of them."
Her blanket slipped from her shoulders as she rose stiffly, she moved her limbs as though they were weighted with stones and it seemed to take a tremendous effort for her to fold the blanket and the tarp. Xavier watched as she moved, zombie-like, struggling through the fog of sleep deprivation to perform even the simple task of packing her bag.
"Let me."
She did not protest as he pulled the bag from her limp fingers, finished cramming the tarp and blanket in, tied it shut and swung it over his shoulder.
"It's not far to the Reptar from here, Colby," he reassured her.
It took a couple moments for Colby to react. "Really?" she asked.
"Really," he nodded, "The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll be able to get the rock to save your brother."
Colby nodded and pulled her unruly hair back into a tight
ponytail that stopped just below her shoulder blades. "Okay, I can do this," she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
As they continued on through the swamp Colby stumbled more
than she walked and was far less talkative, but as the sun rose higher in the sky she seemed to catch a second wind; becoming more
energised and dragging her feet less.
"Tell me about the stone, how is it going to save Bayne?"
Xavier asked, trying to provide her with something to focus on and make the walk easier now that she seemed to have enough energy to have a conversation.
"The stone? Well, Bayne's sword, Teyat, has got this part at the bottom of his pommel that's sort of indented like," she gestured with her hands. "Anyway, a magical stone used to fit into its pommel, but it was stolen a long time ago. The stone the Reptar have isn't the same, but it might be close enough to work."
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"So," Xavier continued as they began to walk again, "if you return the stone to the sword, it can somehow reverse the
vampirism?"
"That's the idea. Without the stone it can only slow
progression, but with it and some luck..."
"That's a pretty powerful sword."
Colby nodded, "You don't know the half of it."
"Tell me," he coaxed, but Colby shook her head.
"Is it far, Xavier?" she asked as the sun glared down at them from its perch high in the grey sky.
"No," he lied, "it's not far now."
"Can we rest a minute?"
Xavier took in her sunken eyes and parched lips and nodded,
gesturing to a large boulder. "For a minute."
Colby collapsed onto the rock, accepted her canteen from
Xavier, gulped down several mouthfuls of water and handed it back.
"How far behind are they?" Colby asked, pointing with her head toward their pursuers.
"Still four or five hours."
The pair sat quietly, only the incessant buzzing of swamp
insects broke the companionable silence. After several minutes Xavier rose to his feet. "Time to get going," he announced. Looking down, he realized Colby hadn't heard him – she was asleep.
"Poor girl," he said and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face.
"Poor girl, my ass," his shadow snorted. "She's got ye twisted right roun' 'er lil' finger."
"So what if she does?"
"Ye think 'at's smart? Ye dunno anathin' about 'er."
"What do I need to know? You think she's going to hurt me after she saved me?"
"Yer a fool. She's jus' usin' ye ta get what she wants then ye'll see who gets 'urt won't ye?"
"Oh, shut up."
"Drekkin' lover-boy."
Xavier opened his mouth to argue once more, when a sound
from the scrub bush to the left of him caused him to fall into silence.
When he heard the noise mimicked from the right, he knew they were in trouble, and reached down with a tentacle to nudge Colby awake.
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~*~
Colby jumped, startled into wakefulness, to find both she and Xavier completely surrounded by lizard-men she presumed must be the Reptar. Their primitive spears pointed inward, like the spokes of a wheel, all of them directed at she and Xavier. Her heart pounded in her chest and though she didn't dare speak, she slid her hand across the distance separating she and Xavier and squeezed his hand. It was reassuring, at least, that she wasn't here alone.
The Reptar were a dirty bunch. They stood on two feet and had scaly arms shaped like a human's that ended in hands. Their fingers were joined by webbing and they had long, thick, crocodile-like tails that dragged on the ground behind them. None had any hair; instead, armor-like scales covered their entire bodies and shimmered in a variety of swampy colors: black, green, yellow and brown.
They wore a strange assortment of garments. One had only a
dirty loin cloth and a tooth necklace for clothing, while another was covered in poorly-tanned leather. Most of the Reptar had nothing on their heads, but a handful wore iron cook pots as helmets. Colby could discern no obvious gender difference between any of the creatures. If two different sexes existed in this race, and if both were represented here, it was impossible for her to tell.
Other than the weapons trained on them, the Reptar didn't
seem too concerned. A few of them, and Colby estimated there was a dozen, were watching she and Xavier casually, their grips on the spears loose and relaxed. The majority, however, were wat
ching two other Reptar just outside the circle, a large grey one and a mid-sized green one. They were in the midst of an intense conversation with one another, their animal-like language full of grunts and hisses Colby couldn't begin to understand.
"Xavier?" she whispered, tentatively.
"I don't know what they are saying. That one," he gestured with his head to the grey Reptar in a rusted mail shirt, "seems to want to kill us. The other, I think, wants to take us somewhere."
Colby cleared her throat, which suddenly felt as though it had a walnut wedged in it, and nodded. This wasn't what she'd had planned. The research she'd done on Terricina had implied the Reptar could be traded with. She had hoped to sneak into their village, get the stone and get home, but in the absence of that had
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hoped to trade with them for it. She now realised she'd been foolish and naive. She squeezed Xavier's hand one more time.
"We just going to wait and see what they decide?" she asked once she was able to trust her voice to work.
"Yes. If the big one wins the argument we'll move on to plan B. If he doesn't, we hope they take us closer to the stone you need."
"What's plan B?"
"I'm open to suggestions. Right now I'm going with 'run
screaming'."
The grey Reptar grunted, hissed, then threw his spear down
onto the sodden ground and stomped off into the swamp. The other Reptar turned to the group surrounding them and made a large
circling gesture with his hand. In any language it meant, round 'em up. Spears poked into Colby's side, painful but not hard enough to draw blood, and she saw the same thing happening to Xavier.
"Up," the grey said in trader tongue. "Up. Walk."
Rising to her feet Colby grabbed her bag and canteen, then, her knees still weak with fear, followed the grey's pointing scaly finger.
She and Xavier walked side by side, their escort spread out all around them, never further away then the length of a spear. The grey led the group of them, marching straight forward with a confidence Colby envied.
"Are they going to kill us?"
"I don't know Colby. I don't think so. They'd have done that back there. I expect they want to question us first."
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