by Ashley Capes
“I will put forward your request in strong terms with my grandfather, that I can promise. If it is important to you.”
“It is.”
She held out her hand. “Then we have a deal.”
He clasped her hand; the calluses of an archer. “We do.”
Chapter 8.
Shapes moved beneath the surface, barely visible shadows swirling in the murky grey of the water. Too big to be the leeches Karlaf mentioned, surely. Never kept a hand close to one of his knives.
It was hard to keep the Amouni at the forefront of his mind.
Each time he began to drift into thoughts of what could have happened to them – and whether they were truly his ancestors as it seemed, or just how truthful Elina was being – another shape flashed beneath the surface, close enough to catch his eye.
He’d trace its movement and only when the shape disappeared did he relax again.
Karlaf poled them through the swamp, Elina supporting him from the opposite end of the newly-repaired raft, navigating between small islands, which were often little more than clumps of dirt burdened with weeds. Many bore small white flowers – just as often these were landing pods for green-gnats. The mint-like leaves were doing their job so far, at least, as he’d suffered no more trouble from the gnats.
Half the forest now seemed to be submerged. Wherever he turned, there were more white trunks rising from the water-line. Leaves drifted atop the water, the raft pushing them aside in its trickling wake.
“How are you charting a course?” Luis asked Karlaf from where he sat beside Never. “Everything looks awfully similar.”
“From memory. And the bigger islands don’t move much.”
Luis glanced at Never. Elina chuckled from behind. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“Best guide in the nation,” Never suggested.
“Right you are,” Karlaf said.
The flow of brackish water and leaves continued as the day wore on. They suffered an unsteady, cold meal at noon and then back to the slow passage. Never kept an eye on the water. Several times something smooth and black broke the surface but never close to the raft. When he mentioned them to Karlaf, the man nodded.
“That’ll be the leeches – we’re nearing their nests, I’d say. They’re fast swimmers when they want to be but their legs are pretty weak. They’re a lot slower on land.”
Never’s hand strayed back to one of his blades. “No point me raising a few as racing-leeches then, I take it.”
Several times the waterway narrowed and taller banks rose around the raft – damp, muddy walls tangled with vines and weeds. The trees towered above, blocking the overcast sky. Yet it remained warm, the air thick. Sweat – non-fever sweat – trickled down his back. In the shade, the water was darker. Such passages were usually brief and at the exit to one, the Pale Swamp spread out again, into a pool where no trees grew – only a wide expanse of pale water, still but for slight ripples.
“Is this the pool you warned us about?” Never asked.
“Yes. They’ll be massing here and they’ll try and swarm us,” Karlaf said. “Get the clubs. Protect us – we’re going to make a sprint.”
Never drew the heavy wood from the pack in the centre, his action mirrored by Luis, who swallowed and stepped closer to Karlaf. Never shifted back to Elina, who gave him a tight nod. “Swing short and hard. Don’t waste time or energy with wide backswings,” she said.
“Right.”
She drove the pole down and pushed off harder than before. The raft picked up speed slowly. Well before they reached the centre of the small lake, black shapes converged on them beneath the water – first only a few, but from all directions.
“Here they come,” Karlaf called.
Never kept his eye on the swamp. A dark shape broke the water near the raft and he whipped out his club, smashing it before it surfaced fully. The impact was soft and dark liquid spread in the water. Another creature had reached their vessel. Its long mouth ranged out beside Elina. Two small feet gripped the edge of the raft. He shuddered as he leant over and smacked it back into the water.
“Never.”
Two more had reached the raft behind him, water dripping from their bodies. Like small dogs, their stubby feet supported thick bodies. The snout twisted, searching for flesh and blood it seemed, and two milky eye-slits sat on either side of the head, such as it was. He kicked one and smashed the other from the wood in quick succession.
Only the first one was stuck to his boot.
It writhed. He brought the club crashing down to splatter it, dark blood flying everywhere.
Elina cursed. He spun. More creatures crawled over the side, several snouts heading for her leg. He swung short, sharp strokes and cleared the raft but they continued on. Never swore at them and Luis echoed him with his own cry of rage.
The water churned with their bodies.
Leeches heaved themselves onto the wood with wet slaps in twos and threes now. He dashed from side to side, roaring and swinging his club as he went. Bodies exploded and black splattered. Sturdier leeches were flung into the water and did not return.
Never glanced up.
A channel between a string of islands loomed ahead. Nearly there. He lashed out again, crushing more. He spun to kick another leech. Always, it was replaced. The black, slick tide continued but he managed to keep Elina free of them as she worked, driving the pole down time again.
His foot slipped.
Never crashed to one knee, toppling onto his elbow. Pain shot up his free arm but he managed a vicious backswing at the nearest creature. It disappeared in a flash. Something latched onto his thigh, tearing through the pant leg.
A numbness spread but even as he rose, club lifted, the leech began to shudder. Before he could strike it, red blood exploded from its snout. It fell away, spasms wracking the slimy body.
“Never, quickly.”
No time to ponder exactly what his blood had done to it.
Elina had stopped poling, kicking at inky shapes clinging to the sapling. Leeches were scrambling over one another behind her. He renewed his attack and bodies tumbled back into the water. He pummelled the rest into black pulp and paused. The muscles in his arms screamed fire but there were more leeches. He swung and swung and swung again until the surface of the raft was covered in thick blood and water and the flow of creatures slowed.
Finally, few remained and with another swing, another wet splatter, the last died as the raft slipped into the channel.
Never lowered his club. The end and much of the handle was dark with black blood and shreds of skin, pieces of glistening flesh. He let it trail in the water a moment as he exhaled, chest heaving. Luis was resting too, as Karlaf drove the raft deeper into the channel.
“Tell me we don’t have to do that again,” he said, half an eye on the water. No more shadowy shapes.
“We won’t cross the Black Lake on the way home,” Karlaf said.
“Good. What lies ahead?”
“More channels and smaller pools but nothing like that underwater nest,” he said. “We’ll stop before dark. It’ll take time to find the right spot.”
“What is the right spot?”
“I’ll know when I see it.”
Luis had caught his breath. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “How by all the Gods do you do that alone?”
“With days of preparation. And oars. The poles tend to disturb them,” he said.
“Good thing we had two poles then,” Never said.
Karlaf grunted. “You’re the one who’s sick, right? Speed is important.”
“True enough.”
“How else can you prepare?” Luis said. “If we have to go back that way for any reason, we should know.”
“We won’t go back that way,” he said. “But if we do, you make a paste from the Bell Mushroom – it’s a repellent – and you paddle quietly.”
“I will gather as many as you need,” Luis said, eyes still a little wide.
Isla
nds continued to slide by with the afternoon. Never took a turn on the pole to relieve Elina. He soon got the hang of it, casting ahead a little, finding the bottom and putting his weight into pushing the raft on, near as possible to Karlaf’s own movements.
While he worked, Elina checked on her bow.
“Any chance of live game in here?” Luis asked her. His expression wasn’t particularly hopeful.
“Nothing we’d like to eat.” Karlaf straightened, raising his pole as he did. “There.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We need to angle toward the big island beside the dead trees. See them?”
Never nodded. Two skeletons of trees, greyed from wind and water, thrust up from the waterline and beside them stretched a large island complete with a small grove of birch. Other trees were scattered around and down the sides of the island as it sloped, tangled with exposed roots that searched for water.
Pushing off from the bottom, Never shoved at the pole, stirring the murky water.
The raft soon bumped against the island. Karlaf placed his pole across the raft and tied it to the larger roots, hands swift. Next, he cast his pack onto level ground and waved for the rest.
“Our turn,” he said, and climbed onto firm ground.
Luis and Elina followed but Never paused to glance back across the water. Had there been a flash of movement? He squinted. Between the green of the shrubs on a moderately-sized island?
It could have been a bird.
Only, it seemed as before. A feeling of eyes upon him and the suggestion a man – or woman – watching him, slipping behind a trunk. Maybe it hadn’t been Elina following them after all. He’d ask the others before dark. If eyes were watching, then it was better to have many eyes watching back.
Chapter 9.
Karlaf began to clear a space between the trees for bedrolls. Luis he sent for fuel and Never had been given the task of collecting mushrooms under Elina’s supervision. The Bell Mushroom was a pale yellow, rounded top, often nestled between other, white mushrooms.
“See, they’re almost always a little taller too,” Elina said as she plucked one free and placed it in the pouch of her blue tunic.
Never drew one forth himself – light and odourless. “And they’ll prevent the leeches from swarming our camp?”
“If we find enough, yes. Karlaf believes the mushrooms have a scent humans cannot detect.”
“Do they grow elsewhere?”
“Only on the larger islands usually. Keep looking.”
He circled a tree. Two more in another patch of white caps. He added them to his own pouch before finding a whole cluster a little further along. He harvested them and continued, his back beginning to ache from all the stooping.
New sweat formed at his temples. Grand. Welcome back, fever. The swamp was warm enough already without the Moor-Sickness and its impatient burning. Sweat trickled down his face as he worked, a drop falling from his nose. A tiny ‘plop’ followed when it hit a white cap. After completing a circuit of the grove, he returned to camp.
Elina was already laying out her haul and Luis was working on a stew, adding vegetables and roots to a bubbling pot. Never placed his pile beside Elina’s.
Luis pointed into the trees. Did his finger waver? “Why don’t you help Karlaf find more? That might not be enough.”
Never nodded. Better to be buried in mushrooms than leeches.
He walked further from the grove and found more in open spaces where leaves had fluttered down to lay in the muddy earth. When he returned again, darkness was falling and Elina and Karlaf had created a ring of mushrooms around the camp. Pairs were evenly spaced and he added more to a few spots where only one yellow mushroom sat.
It was almost child-like. Gods, it had better work.
“This is enough?” he asked.
Karlaf rose from where he bent by his pack. “I’m hoping so. Regardless, we’ll post a watch to be safe.”
“Prudent.”
Never sat on one of the logs which had already been dragged near the fire and stretched his legs toward the warmth. Not because he was cold, but drying his blood-covered boots couldn’t hurt, especially being surrounded by the endless, muggy damp of the swamp. Still, the flickering yellow and orange was pleasant to watch. And it was nice to rest his aching arms. “How far to Sarann?”
“Two days, three days now that we’ve had to cross the swamp. By dusk tomorrow we’ll be free of it at least,” Karlaf said.
“And the Bakar?”
“They appear anywhere in the forest but never in the swamp. Most likely, we’ll see them from a day out. They prefer to stay near the ruin.”
“And tonight?” Luis asked. He gave the pot another stir, glanced over his shoulder toward the water, then sat back against the log.
“Walk a circuit on watch, to be sure,” Elina said.
“They don’t like fire either,” Karlaf said.
“How did they grow so big?” Never asked. No leech he’d encountered in any land had ever grown so large, nor did any possess limbs.
Karlaf tossed a branch into the flames. “No-one knows. Maybe they’re not leeches, but something else?”
“Old stories say they only appeared after the fall of Sarann,” Elina added.
Karlaf gave a grunt of agreement. “Why not? They say the same about the madness of King Wiegen and his line.”
“This is the King who angered the Gods at Sarann, isn’t it?” Never asked.
“It is,” Karlaf said. “Do you know the story?”
“Not the details. His queen was unfaithful?”
“Yes,” Elina said. “The legend tells that Queen Abrini was unfaithful – but not quite as the word alone suggests. King Wiegen was old and had no male heir. His line, a line of three hundred years, would fail. Due to a pestilence, he had no sons and not even a daughter either.
“But Abrini was young and a devout Helinir-follower. Helinir edict said that any queen would give their firstborn to the priesthood – to the Forest essentially – to prove their commitment to the protection of the White Wood. Helinir was a goddess of harmony and was said to care for the forest as a whole.”
“I assume Wiegen found that inconvenient?”
“He did. And when she fell pregnant and told the lord of her intent to follow the way of Helinir, he swore that he would take any male child she bore and seal her in her precious temple. Months passed and she said no more of her plans – to the King. Instead, she enlisted a young priest from the temple. He would protect her and so when it came time for her to give birth, she fled to the temple of Helinir and barricaded the doors.
“There, after a long labour, when the moonlight finally burst through the temple skylight, Abrini gave birth to a baby boy, whom she named Beschützer – Protector in your tongue – and she was happy. The young priest made to steal the child away, to replace him with a baby girl recently abandoned but it was not to be.
“Wiegen knew of her plan. It is not recorded who betrayed the Queen and priest, but whoever did so sealed her fate. The son was taken and both priest and queen were trapped in the temple, which was set ablaze to the cheers of the populace whom Wiegen had fooled with a story of infidelity and theft. The other followers of Helinir were driven into the trees never to return. Abrini and her brave priest died but their spirits were so distraught that Helinir heard their pleas and in retaliation for Wiegen’s behaviour, the Goddess cast the mountain upon the palace, destroying half the city in the process.
“And now the ghosts of the dead, innocent and the guilty alike, roam in despair. Trapped, tied to the city as their bodies were buried beneath stone. The most furious have become the Bakar and in their blindness for vengeance on any who trespass, some have said they become beast, while others claim they are ghost.”
“Then if flesh, they can be killed. If spirit, banished,” Never said.
“Most survivors tell of displays of piety for Helinir,” she said.
Karlaf nodded. “I hear the same.”
“But you’ve never
faced them?”
“Once.” He waved for a bowl. “Give me something warm first, will you?”
“It’s not reduced all the way,” Luis said.
“No matter.” He accepted the bowl and held his face over the steaming stew a moment before lowering it and resting a spoon inside, the knuckles in his fist swollen. “The one I fought surprised me by my campfire. I was young, guiding a group of pilgrims to the foot of the Tindrea Mountains. It made no sound, simply leaping from the shadows beyond the blaze. It was like a slender bear, yet when I attempted to deflect a blow from its claw, a chill swept over my arm. I had cold burns – the scar remains.” He rolled a sleeve back.
White scarring covered his forearm in four long gashes.
“How did you survive?” Luis asked.
“When it crashed into me we struggled and I rolled it onto the fire. It let out a screech that burned my ears but it was enough. It released me. I sprang to my feet and drove a blade into its chest. It seemed to shrink when it died, but its height had to be half again as tall as you.”
Never whistled. “How close were you to the ruin?”
“Too close. We’d stopped within sight of the first crumbling stone – the pilgrims wanted to camp within but I didn’t like the feel of it. They convinced me to stay.”
“Bet that was their last trip to Sarann,” Never said.
“It was.” Karlaf raised a spoonful of hot stew to his mouth. “The Bakar killed them all before it attacked me. That’s what woke me.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
Karlaf waved a hand, then took another mouthful. “Just be on your guard when we get there. Be on your guard now, for that matter.”
“I will.”
Elina held up a closed fist, four twigs protruding. “Shortest takes last watch.”
*
When he woke the moon was full and sweat coated his skin. Had he missed his watch? Whose turn was it? He sat up. The fire was cold. Two shapes slept nearby and a third bedroll lay empty.