She wouldn’t fret this way if she’d had a son. I should have been born two hundred years ago. Her ability to govern would never have been questioned then, when queens still ruled the Nine Peaks in Aryllia’s name. But that was before the King’s War, before Kaleb Aryllia had stolen his sister’s throne and decreed that his sons, not his daughters, would follow in his place.
Her mother put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “You know I didn’t mean it that way, dear. I am so proud of everything you have done for Greenwall these last years. And so is your father, even if he sometimes forgets to say it.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Shona said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I think the worst too quickly, sometimes.”
Her mother squeezed her affectionately. “I am sorry that you have so many reasons to. I would make it easier for you if I could.”
“Lady Shona, Duchess, sorry for interruptin’.” Ollet came to a halt several yards ahead, and turned to face them, scratching awkwardly at his beard. “We’re almost there.”
He pointed to the work site, where wooden scaffolding clung to both sides of a wide chasm in the wall, more than ten yards across. It was not far away now—close enough that Shona could nearly make out the faces of the knights standing watch. There were no workers to be seen. Apparently Ollet had meant it quite literally when he’d said his men would not go near the place.
“Well, let us see this Deepling, then,” Shona said, motioning the man forward.
Ollet led them through the gap, nodding at the knights as he passed by. A half-circular wooden palisade had been erected around the breach—they were just above the mist here, and it was comforting to have at least an illusion of safety, even if it wouldn’t stop the Deeplings for more than a moment. Within the palisade, mounds of rubble were piled higher than Shona’s head, and scraps of iron and masonry littered the ground. A huge thunderbolt wingbow lay near the top of the nearest pile, one curved wooden wing bent over backward on itself. The severity of the damage didn’t surprise her—she’d seen as bad or worse at the last two sites. A thirty-foot-thick wall didn’t collapse neatly.
What was surprising, even though she had been warned in advance, was the creature itself, half-buried in broken stone.
It was all black, with the slimy sheen of an insect, and she knew instantly that it was what the Knights of the Storm called a beetleback.
Every child learned of the Deeplings: beetlebacks, grublings, rotborn, deeprats, the great wyrms and fouler things with no name at all that burrowed far deeper beneath the earth. Named or not, they were all of them the corrupt spawn of the King in the Deep; the stuff of nightmares in the hours past midnight, of threats from angry parents and scary tales passed between children when they were meant to be sleeping. Shona had vaguely imagined what they might look like before, based on second-hand description and distant glimpses: patchwork creatures made of parts from all the foul things that crawled and rotted beneath the ground. But her imagination had not prepared her for the reality.
God Above, it’s horrible.
It had a head and torso vaguely like a man’s, statuesque and muscular, but it didn’t have a man’s skin; instead, it was covered in plates of glossy black chitin. Where its eyes and nose should have been, there was nothing but a dark smoothness like polished obsidian. Its mouth was a gaping hole surrounded in tiny finger-like appendages, with serrated mandibles on either side. At the ends of nearly-human arms, long claw-blades like jagged swords emerged from each wrist in place of hands.
And below the torso, even the smallest resemblance to anything human ended. A huge shelled body like a monstrous beetle bulged grotesquely from its waist, and beneath that swollen bulk were the remains of several segmented insect legs, splayed and broken. Its carapace had been crushed under the weight of the collapsing wall, and thick black blood oozed from the cracks, staining the stones beneath so dark that the creature seemed to lay atop a void in the earth.
She heard her mother retch at the sight, and couldn’t blame her. There was something profoundly unsettling about the monster, something that made Shona feel wrong—as though it was somehow reaching inside her, twisting something pure into something corrupt. But there was something else, too… a voice calling to her, a sweet whisper promising everything she’d ever wanted. Come to me, it said. Come to me, and you will have the respect you deserve. Though she couldn’t remember deciding to do so, she felt herself moving closer, reaching out with one hand.
“Shona, what are you doing? Don’t touch it!”
Her mother’s voice made Shona jump, and her hand smacked painfully against the pile of stone, sending a torrent of loose rocks tumbling to the ground.
“You feel it, don’t you, Lady Shona?” Ollet took her gently by the arm and drew her back several steps. “It’s like the chastors say, the Voice of Corruption. Feels like spiders crawlin’ in your gut, but you can’t look away. Don’t get too close, you know what the knights say about touchin’ their blood.”
“Yes, I… I think I’ll keep my distance.” It took more effort than she liked to wrench her gaze away from the creature and face Ollet. “I didn’t think it would be so… powerful.” She’d heard the stories, but somehow she’d thought that she would be strong-willed enough to ignore the voice. Just arrogance, she supposed.
Why should I be able to resist it when trained knights have been driven to trade blood with them? And that was what the Deeplings wanted most, or so the Word said. Not just to feed, but to corrupt. It was said that the smallest drop of Deepling blood in an open wound carried a blood-curse that would drive a man insane in days. The Knights of the Storm sent their cursed alone into the Swamp to kill as many Deeplings and swamplings as possible before falling to death or madness. The last pilgrimage, they called it.
That was a journey Shona had no desire to take.
“You see why we can’t work while this thing’s here, Lady Shona?” said Ollet, still holding her arm.
“I’m sure the knights already have it in hand,” Shona said, “but I will speak to the lord general when he returns.” Thank the Wind of Grace for Eian. What would I do without him? It would be impossible to manage Greenwall if she couldn’t rely on the Knights of the Storm.
“Long as my men don’t have to touch it,” said Ollet. “Soon as it’s gone we can—”
He stopped abruptly at the sound of a light rattling from the pile of rubble, and looked toward the noise. Shona turned to see another small slide of stones roll down the mound, and then her gaze was drawn to the Deepling without any conscious effort on her part.
Vera’s eyes widened. “Is it moving?” She tugged at Shona’s arm. “Please, dear, let’s go, quickly.”
“Stone’s just settlin’, I think,” said Ollet, but he, too, glanced nervously toward the beetleback.
Another few stones dislodged, and Shona thought she saw the creature’s arm move, just slightly. Or was it the stone beneath the arm? She had almost convinced herself it was her imagination when the rocks beneath the creature started to roil violently. And there was another noise too: a rough scraping, like a spade against stone.
“Run!” Shona shouted, and just as she did, something exploded from the rubble, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Her foot caught on a rock and she fell to the ground, catching herself on her hands and knees. There was a scrabbling sound behind her, and she turned to see, her heart pounding.
It wasn’t the beetleback; it wasn’t nearly big enough. A creature the size of a large hound emerged from the dust, with an eyeless face—the Deeplings saw without eyes, she remembered that from rhymes and stories—and a tapered pink snout that opened to reveal sharp yellow teeth. Sharper still were its claws: four inches long at least, a row of pike-heads at the end of each shovel-like foot. Mangy black fur covered its head and legs, but its body was armored in a shell of interlocking segments, like the little insects Shona sometimes found rolled into balls under rocks in her garden.
And it was silent, utterly
silent. It didn’t growl or roar; she couldn’t even hear it breathe. Without making a sound, it leapt at her, terrible claws raking through the air.
Wind of Grace, don’t let me die here. Instinctively, she reached for the stone she had tripped over, a fragment the size of both her fists put together, then scrambled backward on her hands and feet. The creature—the name deeprat rose from her childhood memories—landed just where she had been a moment before, its claws tearing deep grooves in the earth, then lunged forward, half on top of her, snapping at her face. It stank of decay and wet earth.
Her mother screamed, and then something struck the deeprat with a heavy thud. Shona looked up to see Thorm Ollet standing over it with a piece of wooden scaffolding clutched in both hands; the two knights who’d been standing guard approached quickly behind him.
Ollet’s makeshift club bounced back from the beast’s shell, doing little damage, but the deeprat hesitated, just briefly, stunned by the force of the blow. In that instant, Shona wrenched her arm up and smashed her rock hard into the side of its face. “Get off of me!”
The deeprat stumbled sideways, tucked its head and legs in, and started to roll into a ball, trying to hide within its thick armor. Before it could, one of the knights stabbed his sword down through the joint where shoulder met shell. The blade sank deep; the creature convulsed violently, doubled over at the midsection, and ceased to move.
“Get back!” the knight ordered. “Don’t let the blood touch you.”
Shona pushed herself to her feet and staggered back, panting. From behind, her mother enveloped her in a tight embrace, sobbing into her shoulder.
“Lady Shona, I… By the Above, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” Thorm Ollet’s eyes were wide with terror. “It must’ve been waitin’ there since the attack.”
Shona didn’t answer; she was still trying to find her breath, and she couldn’t look away from the deeprat, half-rolled into its unnatural shell. All she could think was, Well, I did want to see a Deepling up close.
“Um… Lady Shona?” A voice from behind. Shona extracted herself from her mother’s arms to turn and look.
The speaker was a lean man, simply attired, and the look of terrified confusion on his face made it very plain that he would prefer to be anywhere else. His eyes went from Shona to the dead deeprat to the half-buried beetleback, then back to her again. After a long silence, seemed to decide that the safest thing was to just do what he had come to do. “The… the basket-keeper sent me to tell you the princes’ basket has been spotted. They should be here within the hour.”
The words were exactly what she hadn’t wanted to hear, and yet when Shona felt the familiar quiver of anxiousness in her belly, she almost laughed. Somehow, even after what had just happened, she was still nervous to see Josen. Ridiculous. If I can fend off a deeprat with a rock, I can face him. She looked down at herself. Her trousers were ripped at the knees and stained with mud; her blouse was torn and filthy. Half-heartedly, she attempted to brush off some of the dirt.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose I had best change my clothes.”
6. Exodus
Zerill
Zerill came to a halt at Azlin’s signal, some hundred yards from the arranged meeting place.
Uvik, Sava. Stay hidden, check ahead, Azlin signed to two of her scouts, and waved the rest of the band into hiding.
A dozen Lighteyes vanished into the darkness almost instantly. The boggrove trees here were sparse and stunted, no good for climbing, but they offered cover, and there were crags and rocks and recesses all around—the Abandoned could always find places to hide in the Swamp. This far east, they hardly needed to bother. The mist was thicker overhead and lower to the ground than it was in the west; so little light filtered through from above that if Zerill had just stood still, a highlander could have passed within a foot of her and not noticed she was there in the dark.
Instead, she dropped to her belly with her sister behind a low stone ridge, and peered over the edge. She couldn’t see anything ahead but the distant green glow of some spiritmoss between the silhouettes of scraggly boggroves—narrow-trunked and no more than twenty feet tall, when in the west they grew a hundred feet and more—but she knew what was waiting there even so.
It’s only going to be Korv’s band, Zerill signed. You could just give him the signal. Highlanders wouldn’t know it if they heard it, and they never go beyond Greenwall.
Korv was the son of Grandfather Tarv of the Heartspears, and his father had given him charge of the Heartspears aiding Azlin with the exodus. The meeting spot they’d chosen was only a few miles northeast of Greenwall, the furthest east of the highlanders’ duchies, but already that was far enough to be safe from Storm Knight patrols. No one but the Abandoned dared come so far into Deepling territory.
If we can set traps, so can the highlanders, Azlin signed, staring into the darkness ahead. Always be as cautious as you think you must—
And then more cautious still, Zerill finished. I know. She’d heard that more times than she could count. Azlin didn’t think her younger sister was nearly cautious enough, and never tired of saying so. Going into the Plateaus without permission had done little to shake that opinion.
A noise from ahead, a pattern of clicks and squeals that would have sounded like bats to any highlander listening. Zerill knew better. Uvik, signalling a clear path. Only Korv’s band ahead, then. Azlin answered with a different call, the croak of a lure-eye toad—signalling Korv that they had arrived. It seemed needless to Zerill to have that signal and send scouts to see if he was there before using it, but that was Azlin’s way.
Another croak from ahead, and Azlin stood. As suddenly as they’d vanished, her Lighteyes reappeared. Kaza, go tell the Heartspears it is safe, Azlin signed. Before Zerill was fully on her feet, Kaza had moved to obey, already heading back the way they’d come. A band of Heartspear hunters was waiting for word a half-mile behind, one of several they had led east in the past ten days.
Azlin started toward the meeting spot without another word, or even a glance for her sister. Just signalled for her band to follow, and moved on. That brusqueness was nothing new; she’d been distant ever since Zerill had brought back word of the purge. More so than usual, at least—they’d never been as close as sisters should be. She was still angry at Zerill for disobeying her, but it wasn’t just that. Until the exodus was done, the Lighteyes had a heavy burden to bear, and as grandmother, the bulk of that burden fell on Azlin’s shoulders.
Though she’d been furious, Azlin had listened when Zerill and Verik had returned from the Plateaus. Listened and believed, enough to call for an exodus. The Abandoned had only survived as long as they had by fleeing into the inhospitable eastern Swamp when they felt a purge coming—fleeing to the place they called the Kinhome. Little grew worth eating there, and little lived worth hunting, but with proper supplies it made a tenable refuge, a place to gather in Kinmeet or hide from highlanders. Deeplings did dwell in great numbers in the east, but the Makers saw to it that they did not come to the Kinhome.
It was a safe place. And for ten days, bands of Lighteyes had been seeking hunters and scouts in the west and leading them back there, keeping them hidden from highlander eyes.
Their people rarely moved in great numbers, but during an exodus, too many had to cross highlander roads in too short a time. Every kin helped: Shadowfoot runners spread word of the exodus, seeking out the bands scattered across the western Swamp; Heartspear warriors acted as escorts for those who had to pass through particularly dangerous highlander territory. But no other kin knew the movements and motives of the highlanders like the Lighteyes did. It was their duty to organize the movement of every band in the west, to choose routes and times that would avoid highlander patrols and outposts. To see as many of their people as possible back to the Kinhome.
It was not something Zerill considered very often, but her sister was just six years her senior—still young to carry so much responsibility. Azlin tried very hard to
act like the grandmother of a kin should; sometimes it was difficult to remember that she had been only sixteen years old when she had taken their father’s place, and was still a year short of thirty. I couldn’t do half of what she’d had to by the time she was my age. The thought was almost enough to make her regret her disobedience. But if I’d done as I was told, I wouldn’t have learned of the purge. She has to see that.
The only thing marking the meeting place was a Shadowfoot cairn: a small pile of seven stones whose placement would look like random happenstance to an untrained eye, leaning against a spiritmoss-covered boulder. But as the Lighteyes approached, Korv and his band emerged from hiding. By the pale green light of the spiritmoss, Zerill saw some three dozen figures; she searched their faces until she found Verik’s. He usually travelled with Azlin’s band, but Azlin had lent him to Korv when they’d last parted. Korv’s Heartspears had been escorting a collection of bands back to the Kinhome, and travelling in large number through the eastern Swamp was safest with as many Makers as possible. They had ways of warding off Deeplings from what might otherwise have been a promising meal.
Verik grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back. He didn’t come any nearer—Makers were not meant to form close bonds, and in front of so many eyes, he had to be careful. But even so, it was good to see him again.
It was then that Zerill noticed a smaller figure step out from behind a boggrove to stand beside Korv, and her smile grew wider.
The girl took after Azlin more than she did her father. Though he was a big man, broader at the shoulder and chest than Verik, and his brow was marred by battle-scars, Korv had similar features and the same silver hair—they’d been cousins before the Makers’ curse had robbed Verik of the right to family ties. But Azra had the cream-colored hair and sharp chin that Zerill and Azlin had inherited from their mother.
The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1) Page 7