The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1)

by Ben S. Dobson

  “Stop.”

  “But I—”

  Almost casually, she prodded his side with two rigid fingers. Agony darted through his body like lightning, and whatever he’d meant to say came out in a wordless cry as the breath left his lungs.

  “If I don’t ask, assume that I don’t care what you have to say, highlander.”

  Josen couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted to—all he could do was suck in short breaths through his gritted teeth until the pain receded.

  After another long silence, the woman said, “I need to know what you learned in that cave.”

  “What I learned? What do you—” Before he could finish, the memory flooded back all at once—the cave, the old man, Duke Castar’s treachery, Rudol’s last goodbye. And the child. The boy with golden eyes. “Lord of Eagles, the boy.” He tried to sit up, but the movement sent another bolt of pain through him, and he fell back onto his hides. “Where is he?”

  “You mentioned him when I found you, but I only saw the hooded man. Who is this boy?”

  “One of you, a swampling. The old man called him grandson. He had the mark of the Windwalkers. Tell me Castar didn’t take him.” He didn’t want to think what Lenoden Castar could do with those Windwalker eyes on his side.

  The woman’s brow furrowed, shadows flowing into the creases in her forehead. “Explain. I heard you say you couldn’t kill my people anymore—is this boy the reason?”

  “The Word of the Wind… er, our holy book…” Josen exhaled in frustration, winced at the pain it brought, and burrowed the fingers of his right hand into his hair. I don’t even know if they have books down here. “Never mind that. Do you know anything at all about the Windwalkers?”

  She dipped her head. “They are in our legends, too. Men and women with golden eyes.”

  “Well, this boy had eyes like the Windwalkers. Eagle’s eyes. The Sky God would not mark a swampling if we were meant to kill them all. At least, I don’t think he would. I haven’t really discussed it at length with him.”

  “If your people knew this boy was of the Abandoned, would they think the same?”

  “The Abandoned?”

  “Do you think we call ourselves swamplings?”

  “Oh. No, I… I suppose not.” How many times have I said swampling so far? He hoped it was fewer than he thought—he was fairly certain that his survival depended on not angering this woman. “I don’t know how many minds the boy would change. It would be a start, at least. But it doesn’t matter now. If you didn’t see him, he must be with Castar, and that man isn’t going to spare… the Abandoned. He stabbed me just for suggesting it.” The wound in his side throbbed again, and Josen frowned. “I should be dead. How am I alive?”

  “I couldn’t let you die before you told me what you’d seen.”

  “What does that mean?” He tried to sit up again, and managed to prop himself up on his right elbow before the pain stopped him. “He stabbed me. You shouldn’t have had much choice in the matter.” Something was wrong inside him; he was more certain of that with every passing moment. Not just his chest, not just the pain when he breathed; the entire left side of his body felt… different. Like the pieces weren’t where they ought to be. “What did you do?” He pushed back the hides that covered him.

  His body was an abomination.

  It looked as if someone had used dead skin to repair the living, and knit the two together by twisting large clumsy knots from his armpit to his waist. His left arm was too thin, all bones, as if the muscle had atrophied entirely. Beneath it, the flesh down his side wrapped around itself in malformed lumps, mottled with lifeless grey and pulled tight over crooked ribs that seemed to have been shattered and poorly remade. Every breath made the gnarled left side of his chest bulge and stretch to accommodate the expansion and contraction of the lung, exposing new tumescences and shadowed hollows to the green light of the witchmoss. It had been painful enough when he couldn’t see it; watching made it far worse.

  Tears stung Josen’s eyes as he looked back at the woman, and he couldn’t keep his voice from trembling. “God Above, what did you do?” The swampling man from his dream flashed through his mind, and he remembered the feeling of hands burrowing into his body. Was that real too?

  “Healed you.”

  “Healed?” The sight of his misshapen chest distorting with the word made him dizzy, and he swallowed past the nausea. “You call this healed?”

  The woman leaned over him, planting her hand on the far side of his body so that he couldn’t squirm away. Black eyes loomed above his face. “You still breathe, do you not?” Her voice was a scathing whisper. “Your eyes still see. You still feel pain. My sister cannot say the same. I watched you kill her and I let you live. Is that not enough for you?” The blade of her knife pressed against his neck. “If you are not interested in earning your life, I will gladly take it back. Do you want to die, Prince Josen?”

  “No!” He started to shake his head, felt the knife blade slip along his skin, and froze. “That isn’t what I meant.” His faith had never been as strong as his mother’s, especially after watching her die, but all he could think of at that moment was her voice reciting a translated passage she’d memorized from the Word of the Wind: Let only the worst of traitors be buried beneath the mist, for the earth there is heavy with corruption, enough to bind a spirit forever. Josen had entertained notions of a dignified fall from the cliffs before, but that death meant freedom. Death beneath the mist was a trap. Even ruined and broken as he was, he didn’t want that. “I’ll do whatever you need me to. I… I helped you before, do you remember? In the Plateaus. That was me. I didn’t have to do that.”

  Her knife didn’t move from his neck. “I remember,” she said. “I saw them remove your mask. You almost fooled me into believing a highlander could be kind. And then you put your sword through my sister’s stomach. You shouldn’t use your past to bargain with me, Prince Josen. All I want from you is a way to stop the purges.”

  “Yes, I… I understand.” She was right: the festival might as well have been a hundred years ago, and she had no reason to trust him anymore. “I just… I need you to believe that I want to help. I don’t know what good I am like this, but I will do what I can.” Spirit of All, let her believe me.

  It was funny, in a sad sort of way—he really had wanted to help after he’d found her in the Plateaus, even knowing what she was. Wanted to somehow convince his father and Eian to stop the purges and save her people; to play the hero for her, like Shona and Rudol always said. And now she was asking him to do just that, and all he wanted was to wake from this nightmare and find himself above the mist, with a healthy body and a brother who hadn’t left him to die. Not much of a hero now, am I, little brother? You would love this.

  To his great relief, the woman removed her knife from his throat and settled back onto her knees. “If this boy is so important, you must tell your people about him.”

  “Who would listen? My own brother thinks me a traitor, which means everyone in the Nine Peaks does by now. Castar will have come up with a story; he’s no fool. I can’t just walk out of the Swamp and try to explain—if I get thrown into a dungeon instead of off a cliff, it would be the best luck I could hope for.” And even if Father lets me come home, it will be because he’s found some way to cover everything up. It doesn’t matter what I say, nothing will change. He kept that part to himself; being honest didn’t seem like a good way to prolong his life just then.

  “Castar must reveal the boy to use him, and seeing him would prove the truth of your story. No one could mistake one of the Abandoned for a highlander.”

  “Trust me, Castar will find a way. There are tricks, dyes used by actors for their plays… he’s probably already colored the boy’s skin. Anything I can think of, he’ll have thought first. On even footing I’d be a poor match for him, but now? He’s had two turns to prepare. I just woke up.”

  “If you cannot be of use, you will not live long. My people do not want a highlan
der here.” She stood and tucked her knife into a leather sheath at her waist. “The Kinmeet has waited for you to wake and answer my questions, but they will not wait much longer. If I cannot convince them that we need you…” She made a quick hand sign near her neck that Josen didn’t recognize, but its meaning was hard to mistake. “I would be thinking very hard, in your place.”

  “I’m trying!” He immediately regretted speaking so forcefully, but the pain in his lung was the least of his worries. They’re going to kill me. His stomach heaved; the darkness pulsed and spun around him until he had to lay his head back and close his eyes. “I’ve been senseless for more than a turn. If you want a plan that isn’t conjured entirely from fever dreams, I need time. Unless you think my dead mother riding a talking goat would be useful here?” The instant the words came out, he could hear Shona’s voice in his head. Don’t be clever with her, you idiot. If you want to live, you need to cooperate.

  “You would have time if it was mine to give. Tempting as vengeance may be, a chance for peace is worth more. But the Kinmeet makes the final decision, and I will be your only champion there.”

  “Kinmeet? I don’t… what is that?”

  “It is where the Abandoned will decide what to do with you. All of us. And we have little reason to love highlanders. If you have nothing to offer, you will die. Is there not one person in power who might trust you about this boy?”

  In any other circumstance, Josen would have been fascinated by that idea—an entire people choosing their path together instead of following a king—but just then, terror was more pressing than admiration. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Eian? Would he even be willing to listen? This boy means his life’s work has been a lie. And what would he do if he believed me? Castar’s influence over the knights might be greater than his already. He thrust his fingers through his hair until they touched the ground behind his head. Again, he could hear Shona’s voice; no one else ever managed to sound quite so exasperated with him. Think, Josen. Who in the Peaks might still believe you? Who tried to warn you about Castar? And suddenly, it was obvious. “Shona. Of course it’s Shona.”

  The woman furrowed her brow. “I do not know this word.”

  “Not a word, a name. Tell this… Kinmeet that if I can get to Greenwall, I know someone who can help. Shona Falloway, the duke’s daughter.” Her actual influence was limited, a shadow cast by her father, but if anyone would know how to deal with Castar it was Shona. She’d always understood the relations between the duchies better than Josen did. And she wouldn’t believe him a traitor, whatever else she might think of him. Would she? “I’ll tell her about the boy. She’ll… she’ll know what to do next.”

  A rustling sound came from behind the woman, and she turned to look. Someone lifted the tent’s entry flap and peeked in, but Josen couldn’t make out a face. Rather than letting in light, the open flap only revealed more darkness—there might have been a thousand other swamplings out there, or none at all. The woman exchanged a series of silent gestures with the shadowed figure, and then turned back to Josen.

  “The Kinmeet begins. I must go.”

  “Do you think… will they let me live?”

  “You have given me something. Whether it will be enough, I do not know. I would tell you to pray, but your Sky God will not hear you here.” She beckoned to the figure still waiting behind her. “Verik will watch over you.”

  When Verik stepped into the light of the witchmoss, Josen’s heart thudded hard against his twisted chest. He knew this man. The swampling who had destroyed his body in his dreams. Less monstrous, perhaps—no claws, at least—but the same face.

  “He… he did this to me.” Josen pushed himself up on one elbow again and looked at the woman. “I can’t stay with him. Please.”

  Verik’s brow creased above dark eyes as he looked down at Josen’s distorted flesh. He opened his mouth, closed it again, frowned as his hand absently formed several gestures. Finally, struggling over every word, he said, “I am… sorry.”

  The woman laid a hand on Verik’s shoulder and signed something at him in their strange hand-language. Verik moved his hand in return, and then ducked back out of the tent. The woman looked back at Josen. “You would be dead if not for him, Prince Josen. I trust no one else to watch you—many of my people wish you harm. He has offered to wait outside. Is this a problem?”

  Josen didn’t have the strength left to protest. He shook his head. “No. It’s fine.” As long as I don’t have to look at him. He hadn’t expected the man to sound so sad, but that didn’t change anything. It didn’t make his body whole again.

  “Do not think that being left alone in here means you can escape. Verik can see and hear far better than you in the dark, and there are no roads to lead you home. Even if you were to somehow sneak past him, you would only die in the Swamp.” She was already speaking in a near-whisper, but she lowered her voice further still. “And say nothing of what you did to Azlin. Loudspeech here carries farther than you might think. Only Verik and I know the truth—it must stay that way. The kins will never trust you if they know you killed a grandmother.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Josen said. She stopped, holding the tent flap open with one hand, but didn’t turn her head. “You’ve told me his name”—he gestured vaguely at the mouth of the tent, where Verik would be standing outside—“and I assume Azlin is… was… your sister. But who are you?”

  For a long time, she was silent; he didn’t think she was going to answer. And then, as she stepped out into the darkness, she said, “My name is Zerill.”

  Before Josen could ask anything more, she was gone, and he was alone.

  God Above, this is going to be torture. Alone in the dark with nothing but the sound of his injured lungs to keep him company, wincing in pain at every breath, not knowing if he was going to live or die—every second would feel like a year. He settled in for a long wait, gingerly positioning himself to minimize the aches that wracked his body. I should have brought a book.

  He was asleep as soon as his head touched the ground.

  Zerill

  Zerill stalked out of the tent, trembling. A dull pain in her hands gradually drew her attention; she was surprised to find her fists clenched, nails digging into her palms. She forced herself to relax her fingers, took a long breath, and let her gaze wander over the Kinmeet.

  It was never the same twice. There had only been two Kinmeets since Zerill was old enough to remember, but each gathering had taken its own unique shape, just as this one had. Hide tents and improvised lean-tos had been thrown up wherever the ground was relatively level, stretching away in all directions. In and among the temporary structures, hundreds of her people took advantage of the occasion. Friends embraced after long separation; warriors practiced their skills against one another; Makers came together in their suffering circle, or offered their deepcraft to repair weapons and tools.

  The Kinhome itself was little more than a stretch of barren land with a low hillock at its center. Absent the presence of the Abandoned, there would have been almost no life at all this far east. Little could survive on the corrupt soil and noxious water of the eastern Swamp: fungus and spiritmoss, insects and the foul plants that fed on them—or whatever other flesh stumbled into reach—rather than sunlight, and the Deeplings. Anything that wandered this far east quickly fell prey to one hungry mouth or another. It was darker here too than it was farther west, even without the canopy of boggrove boughs overhead; the mist was thicker, and it reached lower, low enough to brush against the ground in places.

  All of which kept the highlanders away.

  Here, surrounded in darkness and danger, the Abandoned could gather in great number without fear. They rarely did; most of the time bands came and went as needed so that the whole of their people were never in one place at the same time. Only children and the elderly—and their Heartspear guardians—remained in the Kinhome year-round. But when a Kinmeet was called, every member of all three kins came together, a
nd within days a makeshift city rose out of the barren waste. To the highlanders, so many people interacting in absolute silence would seem strange, but Zerill had always loved it—all those hands exchanging signs of welcome and affection made her feel at home. They might come together only rarely, but the Abandoned treasured the closeness that accompanied such a reunion.

  But there was a void around the tent where Prince Josen rested. Zerill had seen scarcely anyone but him and Verik since they’d arrived at the Kinhome four days before. No one felt safe around the highlander, and she couldn’t leave Josen’s side for long. He was still weak, and she didn’t trust that one of her people wouldn’t try to hurt him if he was left unguarded.

  It was hard to be near him, and harder every day. To see that dark skin and hair where only the Abandoned were meant to tread. As difficult for Zerill as it would have been for all the others who refused to come near. Probably moreso, she thought—the others didn’t know he had killed Azlin. Every moment she spent with him was a struggle for composure, and there had been moments…

  Ancestors, I almost cut his throat. He was no threat; his body was weak, near-shattered by the brutal healing of the deepcraft so that even his dark curls were shot through with strands of brittle white hair. He was harmless and broken, and yet when he’d said Azlin’s name, it had taken all her will not to drag her blade across his neck. She needed him alive, she knew that, but it was a hard thing to make herself want. And if it is this hard for me, how am I going to convince anyone else? She didn’t know yet, and the Kinmeet would begin shortly; men and women were already gathering around the knoll at the Kinhome’s center.