Jace and his companions knew how to track—these woods were their homes. Soon, they would find him. There was no choice but to flee. But where? He had to find a way out.
Willing his thundering heart to calm, Dain used his dagger to cut into the stem of a dead reed and found that it was hollow. He trimmed both ends out of a three-foot section, clenched it in his teeth and blew through the empty tube, making sure there was no blockage, and then eased down into the muddy water at the cattails’ edge. Careful to avoid splashing, he lowered himself into the knee-deep murk facedown, then rolled over onto his back. With the cut reed between his teeth, he submerged his entire body.
Any of his clothing could reflect light or release bubbles of air and give him away if he remained close to shore, so he crept along the bottom into more open water. A full minute passed as he slowly and carefully edged toward the swamp. He heard elves shouting above. No doubt Jace and his companions had followed the blood trail and found where he had hidden.
Splashes sounded through the water and Dain almost panicked, thinking they had spotted him. He fought down a primal urge to rise and sprint for cover, or at least to charge his enemies and die fighting. But no amount of running would get him clear of the elves before they pin-cushioned him with their arrows.
Resolved to stay still, he lay almost motionless, moving his body only slightly, trying to slide himself under a layer of mud for camouflage. More splashes echoed around him. He heard angry, water-distorted voices as his enemies searched.
Dain counted the long seconds while he waited down in the muck. The thin breathing tube was his only lifeline to the world above. From his years as a scout and his training before, he was used to waiting immobilized. Scouts without patience never lasted long. More minutes passed. He lost count of how many he’d spent underwater. He counted his good fortune that no bugs or birds had landed on the reed to block his airway. He remained still until a long stretch of silence followed what he recognized as Jace’s warbled voice calling out from some distance away.
When he was fairly certain the elves had gone on their way, he resumed his submerged crawl. He worked himself along into the cypress grove, weaving between their slippery trunks, careful to avoid underwater roots. Escaping Jace only to become entangled and drown wasn’t at the top of his list of objectives. Finally, he backed up to one of the large trees and eased his head above the waterline. He scanned the swamp and listened close for any signs of pursuit.
Satisfied he was clear, Dain half-swam, half-crawled deeper in the swamp before finding a low-hanging branch just above him. He reached up and took a firm grip on it, then lifted himself free of the filthy muck. He spent another half-hour climbing until he found a sturdy branch, well above the waterline, to rest on.
He couldn’t expect to find another island for a campsite. Such a place wouldn’t have been very safe, given his weakened state. Too many hungry things could crawl out of the muck, but here in the cypress there was little that could reach him. At least that was what he hoped.
He broke two dead branches free from the cypress then lashed them across a pair of thick, living ones with a leather strap from his belt to hold them secure. With the framework complete, he filled in the empty space with more dead branches, topping it off with leafy cuttings and stringy tree moss. The sponge-like moss and leaves would provide him with a small measure of insulation.
Breathing hard and starting to shiver, he eased himself out onto the platform, gently testing it with his weight. After deciding it was sturdy enough he stripped off his soaked shirt and hung it nearby. Only then, confident he wouldn’t pass out and fall to the muddy water below, Dain examined himself.
Ripping the arrows out had been necessary, he knew, but the barbed heads had left hideous wounds behind. The more serious injury in his leg still oozed blood. He healed it first, straining under the effort. Healing the shoulder wound exhausted him fully, and he fell onto his back after closing it. His breath came in great, ragged gasps. He hadn’t properly cleansed the swamp’s poisons from himself. There was no help for it. He simply didn’t have the strength. His body would have to fight off any infection he picked up from the stagnant muck on its own. Tomorrow, after a night’s rest, he might be strong enough to cleanse himself further. He drifted off into a fitful sleep perched in the great old cypress.
A sharp tug broke Sera’s sleep. Through drowsy eyes she saw Jin pulling on her hand, urging her to wake. The girl babbled excitedly in clipped Elvish and Common alike, none of her words making any sense. It took several moments for Sera to clear her foggy head. She propped herself up on her elbows. Jin let go of her hand but still bounced with a manic energy, her eyes darting around the room.
“Leave…Dain…he is hurt…we have to go now!”
Grabbing Jin’s shoulders, Sera held her daughter firm trying to calm her. After a moment, Jin’s speech slowed and then she paused, took a breath, and grew steady before speaking again.
“Dain is hurt. He’s in trouble in a place with muddy, brown water.”
“What?” Sera said, sitting up straighter in her bed.
Outside it was still dark. Sera struck a match to light an oil lamp at her bedside. Judging by the stars still shining outside her window, daybreak was hours away.
“Listen, please mama, Dain is in trouble. I saw it in my dreams, in a vision. He needs us,” Jin said. She began hopping up and down again, bursting with energy, and her face was drawn and hurt.
“Jin, it’s still dark. I’m sure you just had a bad dream. Dain is fine. He’s with the army. Now, please go back to bed,” Sera replied softly, rubbing at her eyes.
“No!” she almost shouted. “He is in danger. He will die unless we get to him. I know where he is but we have to go now. I am going, even if you won’t.” Jin placed her hands on her hips defiantly. Sera felt a twinge of fondness at the sight. Her brave little girl.
“Fine, let me get ready and we will go,” Sera said. Ever a strong-willed child, Jin wouldn’t be satisfied until they confirmed Dain’s safety.
Sera emerged from her room minutes later to find Jin waiting outside. The girl was dressed in a heavy traveling cloak with two packs prepared for their trip. The hateful rapier that Dain had given her was slung in a scabbard over her left shoulder.
“I packed food and medicines from your supplies,” Jin said, holding one of the packs open for inspection.
“Honestly Jin, I am sure he is fine, he can take care of himself,” Sera said, trying one last time to reassure her.
Jin looked north and stared into the distance, her blue eyes steady.
“Not this time.”
Sera sighed. Better to just yield and go find him.
“Where to, then?” she asked.
“The swamp. He’s out in the swamp, up in an old cypress. He’s hurting, hurting bad,” Jin said with certainty. Sera felt a stab of worry for the first time since she’d awoken. What if he really was in trouble? She donned a cloak and shouldered her pack. The pair made their way through Teran quickly, pausing only to let the guards know where they were going. The city was sealed up, excepting the army, on her father’s orders, and only a strict command from Sera got them through. They may not respect me, but they still have to listen to me, she thought as they headed toward the city’s upper gate.
Once outside the canyon, Jin led the way, marching up the path toward the swamp trail. She set a quick, urgent pace. Sera had to struggle to keep up.
Hours later, when Teran lay far behind them, the sun finally climbed over the horizon and sent narrow beams of yellow-tinged light down into the dense forest.
“This would be much faster if we had brought horses,” Sera said, breaking the silence. Neither had spoken since leaving the city.
“Too dangerous,” Jin replied without turning or slowing. “Dain said horses are good for traveling but not for sneaking. They make too much noise.”
Sneaking? Sera wondered at her daughter’s choice of words. She trusted Jin’s visions—they had been proven true too man
y times not to—but remained unconvinced of the veracity of this morning’s plight. In the past, Jin’s sight had never been so clear. What if she was confusing her visions with her dreams? Or her nightmares? What if she was losing her abilities? Many gifted elves did at her age. Jin’s predictions about Dain—about him becoming her father—those had certainly proven wrong. Selasa, too, had been wrong about that, and the queen was never wrong. Did the visions work when they concerned humans?
Sera recalled their argument, and her words haunted her. After what had been said, she knew that she and Dain couldn’t have a future together. In truth, she wasn’t sure why he had stayed to fight. Wealth, she assumed, wealth for the lands he always seemed to speak of. For the life he would build with someone else.
Less than a mile farther, Sera heard hoofbeats drumming on the path ahead. She grabbed Jin and sprang to one side, praying it wasn’t golden elf scouts. She readied a spell and prepared to make a hasty retreat if spotted. The hoofbeats drew close and her pulse quickened. The Golden couldn’t capture them, not again. This time she would keep Jin safe.
Instead of enemy scouts, though, Jace and several of his friends raced by, pushing their mounts hard.
Relieved, Sera stepped out into the path to call to them when Jin kicked her shin.
“No, not him. We don’t want his help,” the girl admonished her.
Sera wanted to take charge of her willful daughter, to take charge of all of this, but Jin had already sped off up the trail. She felt helpless, like a leaf swept along in the stream’s raging current, and had ever since waking. Was it Jin’s determination that swept her up? Or did she have her own fears that Dain was wounded and needed them…needed her?
They continued through the morning, keeping to a breakneck pace, and into the afternoon without taking even a short break for the midday meal. Twice only they stopped for water, wolfing down a small loaf of grainy bread from Jin’s pack each time. Just before dusk they arrived at the trail leading west toward the swamp, and hours later they had covered another five miles.
“Enough, Jin, we’ve run all day. We need to rest for a time. There’s a good spot to camp ahead, just off the trail. We can start again in the morning,” Sera said.
“By tomorrow evening, my father and grandfather and their army will be here. If we stay they will kill us both.”
Sera flinched to hear Jin mention Gallad and Elam so, but was determined not to show it. “How do you know? Your visions have never been this strong or this clear before.”
“But I told you! The night we met him, remember? When the visions concern him they are very clear, like something remembered. I don’t know why.”
“What else have you seen, then? I know you told me we would all be together, you and I and Dain. But that’s lost now. I ruined that chance.”
“Many things are certain now or very nearly so,” Jin said, sounding so much older than she looked. “From now on he will be there whenever I need him, mother. He will be there whenever you need him as well. For us, he will always be there. But only if we save him tonight. I think he’s around the north side. He crawled into the swamp to hide. And to die.”
Taking in the solemnness in her daughter’s expression, Sera nodded.
“There is an old trail ahead that runs around the north end. It lies somewhere beyond that gray boulder,” Sera said as she took the lead.
To find the seldom-used trail in the dark, Sera slowed to a walk. She cast an illumination spell on a crystal from her pack and held it aloft to view the surrounding forest. Dozens of shining eyes reflected its cool blue light, but she felt no fear—very few animals stalking these woods would dare approach a wood elf.
She noticed fresh hoof prints in the path. With last night’s rain, the tracks had to be recent, and could only have come from Jace’s party. She and Jin followed them until they veered off the main road and onto the old trail. The same trail she looked for.
Jace, then, had come from the swamp’s north end.
Sera’s chest tightened. She struggled to breathe for a moment, fighting to stay calm.
It was all true. It hadn’t been a dream. Jin was right and Dain was hurt and her own brother was likely responsible.
After all the paladin had done for them, saving Jin and healing their father, Jace had betrayed him. Sera knew he was prideful, but how could he be such a fool? He would pay, and dearly, if her suspicions proved true. Once she found and healed Dain, she would take her vengeance on Jace.
What if he is already dead? We could be far too late to help him.
Her brother had at least a dozen warriors riding with him, and each would be an excellent tracker and woodsman. Could Dain have escaped so many?
“Mother, we have to go,” Jin said and gently tugged at Sera’s cloak. She realized then that her feet had stopped and she had frozen in place while staring up the path.
“Yes, yes let’s hurry,” Sera said. She led Jin on again and hoped the clever girl didn’t understand that her uncle had likely killed Dain but, judging by her reaction at seeing Jace on the trail, she already knew. She would be devastated when they found his body. We both will.
The pale half-moon had risen to its peak when they found Jace’s campsite. The hunters had spent some time here. Waiting for Dain to come out of the swamp, she realized with a fresh flash of anger. She knelt down by the cooking fire’s fine, gray ashes. They were still warm to her touch.
She reached out and held Jin’s hand. She wasn’t sure which of them needed reassurance more. To see more clearly, she pushed more of her strength into the crystal, holding it higher and letting it shine brighter. Together they walked toward the swamp, searching for some sign, some indication of where Dain might be or where Jace and his men might have come from. Backtracking the hunters might lead them to the injured man. Sera reached the water’s edge without finding any trace of either. It was too dark to see anything clearly and they really should have waited until morning, but there was no time. Maybe if they returned to the campsite and headed slightly more to the west…
“There,” Jin said. Whether guided by her vision or her own eyesight, she’d seen something. “Boon is there.”
Sera turned and held the crystal toward that direction. Moments later, they found the horse lying on its side in a small, leafy clearing.
The magnificent animal had taken four arrows, each with white dove’s feathers for fletching, each belonging to her people. The fatal one had lodged in his lungs. Mother and daughter stared at him without speaking. Sera had seen death before, many times and in many forms, but Boon’s pulled at her in a way she’d never felt before, and hoped never to feel again. He still looked proud, defiant.
“The hoofprints. Look, the hoofprints come from that way,” Jin said.
She and Sera followed them back toward the murky swamp, finding a broad, green leaf laying with mud smeared all over it. A discarded branch lay nearby, and several of the leaves had mud on them, as well.
After leaving the swamp, Dain must have stopped here to clean Boon’s hooves. Here, then, he must have still felt safe enough to do so. The ambush had happened between here and Boon’s fallen body, and the horse and rider had become separated.
Something else caught her eye, something out of place. In the crystal’s blue light, she noticed a splotch of dried blood reflecting from a bush nearby. In itself, it meant nothing. They’d seen Boon’s blood all along the trail, but none of his could have fallen so high up and on his right side. Boon’s wounds had all been on his left. This had to be someone else’s.
Together, she and Jin walked outward in a spiral, trying to find any sort of trail leading from the blood. They found dark smudges on the ground. He must have crawled through here, Sera thought. On a pine trunk she saw where Dain, obviously wounded, had pushed himself upright and left a smear of blood at shoulder level. From there she followed scattered drops on the ground as they retreated back toward the bog. Jace’s men had left tracks of their own all around the trail. They had found
it, she was sure. Could he have managed to escape them?
Finally, she found where a large patch of reeds and cattails had been stomped down. More of his blood, much more, had soaked into the ground right at the water’s edge.
“He went into the swamp from here,” Sera said. She waded in and soaked her clothing up to her thighs. “Stay close, Jin, this area is dangerous. We are the intruders here, particularly at night.”
Jin eagerly splashed in behind her mother and the pair swam across the deeper water until reaching a shallow area where it only came up to their waists. Sera heard the distinct sound of a sword being drawn. Jin held the black-bladed rapier out before her. The weapon didn’t seem quite so hateful, or so foolish, when Sera thought about the creatures that called the swamp home.
“I am not scared. I have my friend, Quickly, with me,” Jin said. She smiled. Dain had been right when he said the sword would give her comfort. Sera smiled back at her daughter and willed away the tears that threatened to spill over.
Weaving through waist-deep water, Sera led them in and out of the gray cypress trunks, pressing deeper into the swamp. Many of the ancient trees had grown to more than eight feet across, and each supported sweeping branches and a tangled web of stringy, gray-green moss. She held the shining crystal higher, trying to see over a larger area.
How could they ever find one man in all of this? Frustrated, tired, and hungry, she and Jin pressed on.
Distantly, beyond her light’s blue glow, scattered fireflies lit small patches of the swamp now and again. Sera remembered she and her brothers catching them up as children. Mother always made them release their pets in the morning. Bad luck came to whoever kept them, she had said. Untold thousands of them seemed to call the bog home. Once, she spotted the large spiders she’d warned Dain about before he had left. The disgusting creatures fled her light as it burned their sensitive eyes. At night, there were worse things out in the muck, she knew, and not all of them sent fleeing so easily. As if to confirm her thoughts, she caught the red reflection from the eyes of a swamp croc off to her left. Sera cast a blessing spell to repel beasts on both herself and Jin. It wouldn’t drive off a determined croc, but the smaller animals shouldn’t trouble them.
Kingdom's Forge: Book 01 - Paladin's Redemption Page 23