“So the mud pits are the same, only with mud instead of sand?”
“Precisely, my dear,” Dormael said.
“D’Jenn said that the bogs are haunted,” Bethany said in a near whisper, looking around to make sure no one heard them.
Dormael tried to keep a straight face at the girl’s attitude, “Some believe that they are.”
“What do you think? Are there ghosts in the bogs?”
Dormael shrugged one shoulder, “Maybe. There are ghosts, dear, but whether or not there are ghosts in the bogs…I don’t know. The folk who live in and around them believe that there are; they call them mist wraiths. They think that the ghosts come out during the misty times on the bogs and lead people to their deaths.”
“How?” Bethany asked and leaned forward as her interest was piqued.
Dormael grinned, putting a theatrical ominous tone in his voice, “They come out of the mist and call your name, then lead you into a mud pit or into the jaws of hungry predators.”
Bethany giggled and leaned harder against him, “You’re just trying to scare me.”
Dormael smiled, “Yes. But don’t discount it just yet, dear. I’ve never seen the ghosts of the bogs, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. The locals in Farra-Jerra have had stories going around about them for years, and they very well could be out there.”
Bethany nodded and yawned deeply.
“Sleepy?” Dormael asked.
She nodded.
“Well, go down to the cargo hold and get my cloak. We’ll be sleeping on deck during the trip, unless it rains, so if you want we can go to sleep now.”
Bethany nodded and climbed to her feet, then ran down the stairs that led into the belly of the fat old cog. Dormael looked up and caught Binnael’s eye as he came out of his quarters under the wheelhouse at the stern. The man’s face darkened and he looked away, pulling his first mate aside to speak to him. Dormael went back to watching the moonlight play over the water.
The next three days passed by in much the same fashion. The weather was pleasant, and Dormael found that he though he wanted to move faster, he rather enjoyed watching the water roll by. The companions usually took breakfast together at the bow with Dormael and made short conversation. For the rest of the day they’d go to their respective posts and stay on the lookout for pirates, usually staying there until time to bed down for the night. Bethany made a habit of curling up with Dormael, and the rest of their friends made their own bedrolls around the deck.
Dormael had no dreams of the armlet or of Tamasis. The strange entity was conspicuous by his absence, and Dormael began to wonder where he’d gotten off to. He was oddly worried about him. If he’d been captured again by those Wardens there was no telling where he’d be, or what he’d be enduring. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he missed the dark young man that had been sharing his psyche.
What really bugged Dormael was not being able to summon his Kai. Over the years he’d grown used to using it at least once a day, but D’Jenn had expressly forbidden even opening themselves to the power unless in the most dire of circumstances, just in case anyone aboard was sensitive to it. It would expose their charade if they were discovered to be Blessed.
The fourth morning out from Billingsley, Dormael awoke to a dull grey light and cool, damp air. He rubbed at his face and climbed carefully to his feet so as not to awake Bethany, and took a look around as he stretched the sore muscles in his shoulders and back. He’d slept in his armor, and though it wasn’t as stiff as a chain shirt or other metal types, it was still more uncomfortable to wear it than not.
Thick mist surrounded the Midwife in every direction. The ship was oddly silent, and the mist made it seem more oppressive than otherwise. The night lanterns at the stern and the bow were still alight, casting a wet looking halo around themselves with their sullen light.
Footsteps on the deck announced D’Jenn’s arrival, and Dormael turned from gazing off into the mist to regard his cousin. D’Jenn looked bedraggled, as if he’d also been sleeping in his armor, and as he approached he offered Dormael a curt nod in greeting. Dormael nodded back at his cousin, and they both turned to peer into the mists, as if their very gazes could make them part and clear the way ahead.
“You know what this means,” D’Jenn said.
Dormael nodded, “Aye. We’ve entered Farra-Jerra. We’re in the bogs.”
****
Maarkov pushed his sword between the ribs of the screaming man before him, smiling as he felt the blade slide into the soft flesh. He felt hot blood run over his right hand before he smoothly pulled the sword from the pirate and turned, barely in time to slip to his left and avoid an overhand swing from another opponent. Maarkov’s smile deepened as he backed away, slipping aside from two more blows from the man he now faced. The man’s technique was clumsy and amateurish, and Maarkov reveled in playing with him, but all things must end. This man ended with Maarkov’s dagger through his eye socket. The squelching noise it made as it skewered the man’s eyeball was delightful.
Two more men climbed aboard the boat he and his brother had stolen four days past, and Maarkov gave them time to get their bearings in the misty, gray light. Their eyes alighted on him, standing over their dead comrades, and they screamed in rage and came running straight at him, brandishing old short swords. Maarkov laughed aloud for the first time in a long while. This was the best morning he’d had since they’d started this journey.
Maarkov stepped to his right, quick as a snake, and slapped the first man’s short sword aside with a heavy handed blow, causing the pirate’s sword to slap into the chest of his fellow. The move tripped them both up for just a moment, but a moment was all that Maarkov needed. He spun as his foot hit the deck and hamstringed the first man before he’d even recovered his balance. The pirate screamed and fell to his face, dropping his sword. Maarkov ignored him for now – he was out of the fight and unimportant – but his comrade surprised Maarkov by recovering his own balance and entering a spin of his own. His sword lashed out and Maarkov saw it as a dark blur. The blade grazed his face, searing a hot line of pain from his right eye to his jaw.
Maarkov stepped back for a second and smiled at the man, the movement causing a strange loose feeling to play across the skin of his face. He felt his lukewarm, dead blood leaking slowly from the wound and running down his chin. He saw the horror on the pirate’s face, and used the hesitation to throw the dagger in his off hand into the man’s chest. He died gasping for breath.
Maarkov heard a surprised shout and a scuffle behind him, and turned just in time to see the Hunter take a fifth man down to the deck. The thing must’ve come out of the hold when Maarkov was dueling with that last pirate. Its twisted, childlike body crawled over the man like a spider, and with a quick motion, snapped his neck. The misty morning went quiet.
Quiet sobs issued up from the man that Maarkov had left alive, and he turned to see the pirate crawling for the edge of the little boat. Perhaps he liked his chances better in the river than on the boat. Maarkov silently agreed with him.
Before he could make it there, the Hunter leapt from its position a few links away and blocked his retreat. The man let out another fearful cry and tried to back away from the creature, but the Hunter stalked forward, its head tilting to the side. It sniffed the man, making odd little noises as it did so. Gods, but that thing gave Maarkov the creeps.
Slow clapping sounded out through the mist, and Maarkov turned to see Maaz striding slowly toward his brother.
“So nice of you to join the battle,” Maarkov said. His tone practically oozed sarcasm.
“Oh, you had it well under control, I see. I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of a chance to play with your sword, brother.” Maaz reached into a satchel he had hanging from around his shoulder, and unstopped another bottle of those swirling lights. He spoke a few words and one of them leapt out and into Maarkov’s mouth before he could object. The cold tingles played over his face, and that stra
nge loose feeling went away. Maarkov reached up and wiped the dead blood from his chin. His hand came away stained with putrid, black fluid.
Maaz turned his head then, his expression taking on a far-away look, and the four strega marched silently up the stairs from below. They moved around the deck and grabbed the dead bodies of the fallen, dragging them back down the stairs. Blood smeared along the boards of the deck in the wake of the bodies, and Maarkov stared silently at it, feeling detached.
“More soldiers for your army, brother? When will you get tired of making toys out of dead things?” Maarkov asked, still staring at the bright, red blood.
“When you get tired of bedding whores,” Maaz replied, smiling at Maarkov and showing his teeth. The expression was more vulpine than friendly.
Something odd happened then. One of the strega came up the deck and moved for the man who was still alive, but the Hunter jumped in front of him and let out a low warning shriek. The strega kept right on moving, but Maaz stopped it with a hissed word and turned to the Hunter. The strange creature let out a series of kettle like noises, crooning and hissing, and Maaz narrowed his eyes at the thing. The Hunter let out more insistent noises, then raised its mangled arm and waggled it around in the air. The arm made dry, stretching noises as the deadened flesh flopped around. Maarkov suppressed a laugh – something about the scene struck him as damned funny.
Maaz finally hissed something back at the Hunter, and it let out another of those strange shrieking noises and grabbed the live man by his shaggy hair. He let out screams of horror and dug in his heels and searched for purchase with his hands, but it was no good. The Hunter dragged him below as if he were a sack of grain. Maarkov heard the man’s head banging against the stairs as he was dragged to the hold.
“Everybody wants something,” Maaz sighed, “I have made…arrangements to be guided through these bogs. I trust you have everything well in hand, here?”
“I’m not going to be surprised by some demon showing up and taking the tiller, am I?”
“Not exactly,” Maaz replied slowly, “You won’t even have to steer the boat anymore, brother mine. Just stay up here and try to scare off any more miscreants who think that we’re carrying something valuable, eh? I’ll be below if you need me.”
“Brother, wait. What are you planning, here? Where are we going?”
“Once we get through these wetlands we’ll disembark. Then, we’ll make preparations, and wait.”
“What preparations?”
“Since when have you been interested? You said it yourself four nights ago – you’re just a sword arm, remember?”
Maarkov just sighed and made an offensive hand gesture at his brother. Maaz laughed in response and walked away, headed for the stairs that led below. Maarkov moved to the stern, leaning with his arms on the railing and peering into the dense, gray mist. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what kind of preparations his brother was talking about, and Maarkov felt dread wring its way through his stomach like a snake.
Maarkov wasn’t disgusted by killing. He’d seen enough of it to deaden his reaction, surely, but sometimes it got hard to stomach. Killing a man in battle was one thing – it was the most glorious of contests, the oldest of struggles. It made Maarkov feel almost alive to fight.
Almost.
His brother’s methods, though, were definitely very different. Maarkov’s dreams were haunted by a veritable train of faces – women, children, husbands, daughters, and sons. Sometimes they cried out, sometimes they just stared at him with dead, accusing eyes. He remembered the boy that Maaz had abducted back in Soirus-Gamerit, the one who’d gazed at Maarkov with empty eyes as he’d bitten into the flesh of his mother.
The boy that Maaz had made into one of those strega, and whose dead body was now the mangled meat coat that the Hunter wore.
It was times like this that Maarkov couldn’t reconcile the boy that his brother had been to the creature that he’d become. The boy had needed him. The creature only used him.
Maarkov gave no reaction when the boat suddenly moved forward through the water, apparently of its own accord. He stood gazing down at the blood that still stained his right hand, wondering how much more blood would be required of him before his brother would let him finally rest. He gave no reaction, either, when the wild, frenzied screams of the pirate reached him through the boards of the deck.
It was just one more face that would join the ever growing train of accusatory eyes in his dreams.
****
Dormael stood against a rigging line that ran from the bow of the Midwife up to the mainmast. He held his brother’s short bow, arrow nocked against the string, ready to draw and fire if he needed to. The quiver he’d hung from the rigging line by the leather strap, so he could pull more arrows out or abandon the bow if he needed to get to his spear quickly, which also lay nearby.
The mists choked the day, and Dormael had lost track of time. All he could see before them was featureless gray, and the Midwife had slowed to a crawl as a result. It was an unnerving feeling, and Dormael found himself scanning the water for sandbars and hidden hazards as much as for pirates. Time dragged by in silence.
He spotted the dim outlines of reeds growing in the distance, indicating they had indeed passed into the Farra-Jerran bogs. The river Ishamael was wide, but in this area of the land it flowed outward into a low lying wetland that held onto the water like a sponge, and though the river still meandered through it, it practically oozed through the fens like a slug through mud. The smells of rotting vegetation, animal musk, and stagnant water dominated the bogs, and Dormael had never gotten used to the stink of the place, though he’d been through them twice before.
Hours passed as the cog made its way upriver, and as the morning gave way to the afternoon and the afternoon gave way into evening, Dormael’s trepidation grew. The beacon lights had stayed lit all day, and as the light of the day receded they cast misty halos in the night. He felt exposed, but Binnael had flatly refused to extinguish the lamps. Beyond the orange light of the beacon lamps, the night was filmy silver as the moonlight shone down through the mist.
Suddenly there was a fluttering noise, and Dormael felt the passing of something just by his ear. Something skittered across the deck, and Dormael ducked and turned to try and see what it was, but it was lost in the night. The hair on the back of his neck rose in warning, and Dormael pulled the bow in his hands to a half draw as he waited for something else to happen.
His ears strained to hear something though the silence besides his own beating heart, and his eyes tried desperately to pierce the mist. He heard a distant splashing noise, then multiple twangs. His heart stopped as he realized what they meant, and he dropped his body to the deck as arrows lanced through where he’d just been standing.
“To arms!” he shouted, and reached for his Kai.
He stopped himself. D’Jenn had said no magic.
Dormael felt cold as he realized his most familiar and useful tool was currently off-limits to him. He grunted, rising to his feet and rushing from the bubble of light that the lantern on the bow cast, undoubtedly making him the perfect target in the night.
He could hear shouts ringing out through the mist, coming from the rear and sides of the ship, and a small boat materialized out the mist in front of the ship, rowing hard toward the sluggish cog. Two men crouched at the aft of the small boat, bows drawn to shoot over the head of a third man who was doing all the rowing.
Dormael planted his feet, twisting his shoulders and pulling the bow taught with his entire torso, trying his best to judge the distance and aim through the mist. He lined up his shot and let the arrow fly with a twanging noise of his own. The rowing man let out a cry of pain and arched his back as the arrow sank deeply into his flesh. Dormael smiled proudly at his shot; until he realized that the other two archers were drawing upon him.
Cursing, he threw himself to the side as two arrows shot through the night and arced up into the mist, missing him. That move had cos
t him, though, and he wouldn’t be able to gain his feet, set his stance, and draw again before the other two archers were able to shoot at him. The little boat was growing quickly closer to the Midwife, and Dormael imagined that the bow would be rendered useless quickly enough. The mist had served well to hide their attackers.
He ran in a crouch back toward the bow, where he’d laid his spear, and as he did he heard commotion around the ship begin to break out into the sounds of ensuing combat. Just as he wrapped his hands around the haft, a boarding hook arced up over the railing and pulled tight against the old cog. Dormael readied himself.
Rhythmic thumps against the hull of the ship announced the pirate before he appeared, and Dormael stayed low, waiting for his head to appear. When it did, he thrust hard, his spear glancing off of the pirate’s neck and cutting open his throat in a ragged line. Blood sprayed violently from the wound as the man fell from his climb and splashed back into the waters below.
Another arrow flew up from the boat, but Dormael determined it was only a covering shot. He was at an impasse with the one pirate left alive on the boat; if Dormael poked his head out, the archer would shoot, and if the archer attempted a climb, Dormael would kill him just as easily as the last one. He waited, heart pounding.
He looked around the deck and spotted Shawna, backing away from the railing, undoubtedly to avoid becoming a target for archers in boats that had used the same tactic against Dormael. She pulled her swords lithely from their scabbards, the blades ringing out with that musical note that they always did when she bared them, and waited for the first pirates to appear. Two men rushed up the side of the boat and jumped over the railing, but an arrow took one in the throat, fired from the crow’s nest in the rigging. Allen was using his position to advantage, and supporting the companions.
They would need it. There was no telling how many pirates were out there, in the mists.
The Sentient Fire (The Seven Signs) Page 84