The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1)

by Ben S. Dobson

  Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get moving. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the pain. Zerill and Verik were still signing; she held her fist up when she heard Josen approach. Quiet. He was starting to know that one very well. He had no idea what they were saying to one another, but he could see that Zerill was empty-handed; what Verik needed, she hadn’t brought.

  Another exchange of signs, fingers moving too fast for Josen to follow, and then Zerill leaned down, hooked Verik’s arm over her neck, and helped him to his feet.

  “Come,” she said, beckoning for Josen to follow. “It is time to make yourself useful.”

  Zerill

  Zerill was certain that Josen knew the sign for quiet; she’d made a point of teaching him that one above all others. But for all the good it was doing, her closed fist might as well have been meaningless to him.

  “Please, just tell me what you need me for,” he begged, for perhaps the hundredth time since they’d set off. She didn’t know what had changed—he’d been surprisingly obedient, until today—and she didn’t much care. She just wanted him to be quiet before she gave in to the urge to silence him permanently.

  You’ll have to talk to him sooner or later, Verik signed with his left hand, his right still hooked around her neck. Sooner would silence him faster. And he deserves to have his questions answered, after… what he has been through. He staggered and caught his foot on something beneath the shin-deep water of the marsh, nearly fell but for her grip around his waist. The sudden motion sent ripples along the water’s surface that glinted green in the light of some nearby spiritmoss before settling back into calm blackness.

  Zerill helped him get his feet back under him before she signed back. I don’t know why you feel so sorry for him. You know what he did.

  I do. I’m not sure you do. Verik glanced back at Josen, guilt etched in the hollows of his face. I was watching Azlin when she died; you were watching the beetleback. It was Castar who killed her. Josen just held the sword.

  “I just want to know what—”

  Zerill scowled at Josen and held up her closed fist. Quiet. He fell silent under the force of her glare. She looked back at Verik. What do you mean?

  It happened very quickly, but… her anger made her reckless, at the end. When the beetleback stole Castar’s attention, she just charged. Hoped to catch him off guard, I suppose, but he saw it coming. All he had to do was sidestep, nudge her a little bit. She stumbled, and Josen had his sword out in front of him. His eyes weren’t even open, Zerill. He didn’t know what was happening until she was on him. I think Castar meant for it to happen that way.

  Zerill looked back at Josen, struggling through the water behind them, and shook her head. He came into our home with knights who meant to kill us, and he drew his sword. He is responsible for whatever happened after that.

  That may be, Verik signed, but you still need to tell him what we need, if he is going to—

  “Stop!” The word rang too loud over the flat expanse of marshland. “Just stop,” Josen said. “I know you’re talking about me.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and raised her fist again, and not just because she was annoyed. If Korv or any of his warriors were nearby, Josen’s voice would draw them.

  “No, I… I’m not going to be quiet. Not until you listen to me.”

  Zeril sighed and looked at Verik, though she already knew what his advice would be.

  It’s your choice, he signed, but I don’t think he’ll stop until he’s satisfied.

  “Speak then,” she said, helping Verik around so that they were both facing Josen. “But quietly. Come closer.”

  “I know you don’t trust me,” Josen said, obediently lowering his voice as he drew nearer. “I don’t expect you to. Some things can’t be forgiven, I know that.”

  Zerill said nothing. If he had a question she’d answer it, but that was as far as she was willing to go.

  “My mother… she was more or less a prisoner while I was growing up. The marriage was arranged, not something she wanted. My father’s first wife was taken and killed by people who didn’t want him on the throne, and he didn’t want it to happen again—my mother was just a weakness to him. So he kept her close, rarely let her outside the walls of the Keep. She hated it. When Rudol and I were younger she hid it as best she could for our sake, but I always knew. And when she decided we were old enough to take care of ourselves, she just… stopped. Stopped trying. Wouldn’t feed herself, wouldn’t even get out of bed.

  “My father never even came to see her. Sent people a few times to try to make her eat, but he gave up before long. He didn’t care, as long as no one was using her against him. She’d already given him his heirs. And when she died, all the lowborn heard was that she’d been stricken with some sudden illness. No embarrassment in that.” Josen pushed a hand through his white-streaked curls. “I know that she wasn’t entirely well. Perfectly sane people don’t just let themselves die. But he made her that way. He might as well have thrown her from the cliffs. I’ll always hate him for that.” He drew a long, shaky breath. “What I’m saying is, I understand. I… I took someone you loved from you. I don’t expect you to forgive what I couldn’t.”

  Zerill felt blood pulsing in her temples; her fist clenched at her side. “I don’t care if you understand,” she growled. “You don’t talk about her. Ever.”

  Josen raised his good hand defensively. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I… I’m trying to tell you that I want to help you. But even if I convince them that this… this Windwalker boy is from the Swamp, it won’t be enough by itself. If you expect me to argue for peace, you have to give me an argument. I know Verik is… sick, or something. I know it’s about the deepcraft, the Deeplings, their blood… but I don’t understand any of it. You might not care if I do, but that’s what they’ll ask me about. Deepcraft. Blood magick. That’s what my people fear. I’ll need to be able to placate them.” He tilted his head. “But you know that, don’t you? I think that’s why you made me watch that ritual. You wanted me to see them kill the beetleback, so I’d know you weren’t allied with the Deeplings. Am I wrong?”

  “No,” Zerill admitted.

  “But you do… summon them.”

  “They are there whether we call them or not. The Makers did not create the Deeplings. We do not know where they came from any better than your people do, beyond legends of the King in the Deep.”

  “Our stories say your people helped the Deepwalker set them free. That you were his followers.”

  “Ours say differently,” Zerill said. “When your Windwalkers raised their mountains they took only their favorites. Your people and your god abandoned us. But this was hundreds of years ago. Now no one remembers what is true and what is not, and still my people die. Because of stories.”

  “What I saw wasn’t a story, and you wanted me to see it. Please, just tell me what that was.”

  “We… call the Deeplings, when we must,” Zerill said, with some reluctance. “They are always there, but the Makers can bring them near. We do what is necessary to survive in the world the highlanders have left us. You cannot know what it is like.”

  “Then tell me, if you can. Verik tried, but most of it was… lost in translation, I think. Tell me what I need to know and I will use it to help you, I swear by the Above.”

  “Your god cannot hear you here,” Zerill said. “Swear by something else.”

  “Fine. What do you… you must pray to something down here, swear by something.”

  “The spirits of the ancestors give us light where your god denies it.” She gestured at a clump of spiritmoss adorning a boggrove tree rooted in the water nearby. “They do not answer prayers, but… they are always listening.” I hope.

  “Then I swear it on my mother’s soul. That’s… something like an ancestor. The only one I give a damn about.”

  Zerill breathed out through her nose and nodded slowly. “I believe you.” If Verik was right—and she didn’t doubt the keenness
of his eye—Josen had never meant to kill Azlin. That didn’t mean he hadn’t done it, didn’t mean she could forgive him, but she hoped it meant she could trust his guilt. He’d help her because he wanted to make amends for something he never could. “We are going to make a sacrifice,” she said. “Verik needs blood. I hoped to find a lesser Deepling wandering alone, but I couldn’t, and he cannot wait any longer.”

  “You mean we’re going to… to call one? Will it be like before? It won’t fight back?”

  “It should not. But with only one Maker and a small sacrifice, we will be lucky if he can call a deeprat. Even if the bond fails, I can kill a deeprat.”

  “What do you need me for, then?”

  “Your blood,” Zerill said, and held back a smile at the look of horror on Josen’s face. “As I said, our sacrifice will be paltry. Too paltry, and nothing will come. Untainted highlander blood will… sweeten it. I would offer mine, but they like highlanders better—and if Verik cannot control it, I might still take it by surprise.”

  “Blood for blood,” Josen said. “I suppose that makes sense, in a storybook sort of way. But I still don’t understand—how is he even sane? I thought… the knights always say that there is no stopping the madness.”

  “I am no Maker,” said Zerill. “I do not fully understand myself. You and I, we both feel the pull of the Deeplings, just from being near them. The way their blood calls out to be used… I cannot imagine what it would be like to hear that call even louder in my own veins, every day of my life. Verik is stronger than I will ever be, though he won’t ever admit it.”

  She hesitated there; telling secrets of the Abandoned to a highlander felt like a betrayal, no matter how necessary it was. But it was necessary, so she forced the words out. “He has told me that the secret is finding a kind of balance. Deepling blood gives power, and the power must be spent, or it will eat away at the mind. But when it is spent, the craving for more drives men to madness as well. The Makers seek a balance between the two, using their power and replenishing it. There are other things, too, rites of focus, meditation… I know little of them, but they aid self-control.” Zerill looked to Verik for confirmation.

  Close enough, he signed, and inclined his head at Josen.

  Josen nodded in response. “And some things are forbidden, Verik told me. If I could explain that to my people… it might make them less afraid.”

  “Not just some things. Makers are forbidden almost all things. Friendships, family, most possessions, positions of leadership. Anything that might tempt them to use their power for their own gain, or for those they are close to. They may not use their deepcraft on living flesh, or spill living blood with their own hand—the curse begs for sacrifice, and if they end one life, it is hard to resist ending more. And they may never use the blood of a living Deepling. The first thing a Maker does is call the creature that cursed him so that our warriors can slay it. The power is greater, they say, if they let the Deepling live, but so is the madness. Anything they summon is slain, whatever the highlanders might believe. A Maker who breaks these tenets is named a Delver, and banished. They rarely survive long on their own.” Zerill raised an eyebrow. “Is that enough? Verik cannot wait forever.”

  “Right. It’s enough.” Josen tried to look as if he understood something of what she’d said, though she knew a man raised among the clouds never could. “I’m sorry. I just needed… something to go on. What now?”

  Zerill beckoned him closer. “Can you hold Verik?”

  Josen offered a weak grin. “If you lean us together, I suppose we might hold each other up.”

  Zerill just raised her eyebrow higher.

  “Yes. Probably.”

  “Then take him.”

  Josen ducked under Verik’s left arm; Zerill held on until she was certain he could take the weight.

  “Wait here,” she said, and drew her spear. “I won’t be long.”

  She waded deeper into the water until it touched her knees, her spear at the ready. Deep enough now. Take the bait. And there it was. A slight disturbance on the surface of the water, a dark shape moving just below.

  The longmouth lizard lunged.

  Zerill’s spear stabbed down.

  She pinned the beast just behind the neck, and its jaws closed inches from her shin. A long, scaled snout snapped out of the water, but she was already stepping aside, drawing her knife. The sharp stone blade went in through the creature’s eye, and it fell still.

  “What in the Deep? Did you… are there more of those in here?”

  Zerill enjoyed the panicked tone in Josen’s voice more than she should have. “Yes.” She yanked her spear free, hooked her fingers under the longmouth’s upper teeth, and started dragging it toward dry ground. Josen was trying to support Verik and retreat backward at the same time; she let him struggle for a moment before she spoke again. “But you are safe enough. They rarely come into the shallows.”

  Cruel, Verik signed, his grin slighter than usual—like he was too weak even to smile properly. He might have drowned us both.

  A risk I had to take, Zerill signed back, allowing herself a slight smile of her own.

  “Why even… Why have us wade out here with you?” Panting, Josen staggered out of the water and lowered Verik to his knees on the ground. “You didn’t need us… for that.” He gripped his side, wincing with each breath.

  “More of us disturbing the water. I wanted to make sure we were noticed. Faster and safer to have it come to me than to search blindly.”

  With a grunt, Zerill dragged the longmouth onto land and looked over her kill: scales so dark that it was hard to say if the hint of green was real, or just the light of the spiritmoss; a long, pointed snout filled with nasty teeth; four small legs, squat but powerful. No more than five feet long from its nose to the end of its thick, tapered tail. The marsh was too small and shallow for the bigger lizards—she’d chosen it for precisely that reason. Alone, she was no match for one of the fifteen foot and larger beasts that lived in deeper waters.

  She pulled the lizard carcass to Verik and laid it down on the ground beside him. Will this be enough?

  I think so, Verik signed, wearily pushing himself into a sitting position. With his blood. He glanced sidelong at Josen.

  Then do it. We’ve made too much noise already. We can’t risk staying here long.

  Verik drew his knife and made his incisions quickly, spilling the longmouth’s blood onto the ground. He motioned for Josen to approach.

  Josen nervously stepped nearer. “What do I have to do?”

  Zerill offered her knife. “You know how to make yourself bleed, don’t you?”

  Josen eyed the knife warily, but didn’t take it. “I don’t… what about the black fever? An open wound in the Swamp…”

  “No one suffers the fever twice. The cure is in you now.” She thrust the hilt of the blade at him once more.

  “Right. I knew that.” Still, he didn’t take the knife. “I’m just not used to… How much does he need?”

  With a sigh, Zerill seized Josen’s wrist and drew a shallow cut along the back of his hand.

  “Ah!” Josen cried out in shock and tried to pull back, but Zerill held his thumb in place and squeezed it until several crimson drops fell into the spreading pool below.

  “There,” she said, releasing her grip.

  “Did you have to—”

  Zerill lifted her closed fist, and Josen fell silent.

  Verik had already cut his own palms, and now he let his blood fall, mingling it with Josen’s and the longmouth’s. His eyes rolled back; he bared his teeth hungrily. The look on his face was enough to make Josen take several steps backward, but Zerill didn’t move, just held her spear at the ready.

  She heard the whispers in the back of her mind first. After years in the Swamp, she had no trouble ignoring the words, but that voice served as a kind of extra sense, alerting her to the presence of Deeplings. The ground trembled, and again, growing stronger each time. Too strong. Somethin
g’s not right. This was too much for a single deeprat.

  The hungry mask Verik wore fell away, replaced by fear. “Too many,” he rasped, his hands still pressed into the blood. “Can’t…” He bit his lip, and the muscles in his neck tightened with strain. “Can’t.”

  A moment later, she felt the tremors pass underfoot. But something was wrong—they moved by without stopping. What is happening? she signed at Verik. Where are they going?

  He slumped forward onto his elbows, breathing heavily; he could barely lift his hand to sign back. I don’t know. I’ve lost them. Too many, and I’m not strong enough… I don’t know what… And then he looked at Josen, and his eyes widened.

  “What?” Josen moved back another step. “What are you looking at?”

  “Windwalker blood,” Verik said softly. “Thought it was legend, but… power there.”

  “What does that mean?” Josen demanded.

  Verik didn’t answer; he’d already turned back to Zerill. His blood… It called more of them than I could control.

  Where are they going? Zerill signed. You need that blood, Verik!

  Verik pointed vaguely northwest. That way. Not far. They… they must have sensed something nearby. A better meal.

  Korv. Zerill was already moving, following the pull of that soft whisper. Whatever the consequences might be, she couldn’t let the Deeplings take Korv and his men without warning. She couldn’t be responsible for that.

  “Wait!” Josen shouted after her. “Will someone tell me what is happening here?” She heard him following, mud sucking at his feet, but she ignored him.

  Zerill sprinted over wet ground, desperately searching for any sign of Korv’s hunting party. Boggrove trees flashed by in the corners of her eyes. And then she felt it again, rumbling beneath her feet, stronger than ever, and a wet tearing sound she’d heard before—Deeplings breaching the earth. They had to be near. She could see a glow ahead to the right, and she knew instantly that it wasn’t what she’d thought—the light was yellow-orange, too bright. Nothing in the Swamp shone like that.