The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1)

by Ben S. Dobson

  The bats swarmed by in a great cloud, a single black entity blurred together by the mist. Wings beat against her body and tiny claws scratched her skin wherever it was exposed, but she didn’t panic—she’d seen this before. They would pass by in a moment.

  Josen, though, wasn’t so accustomed to the ways of the Swamp. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him trying to fend of the onslaught, waving his good arm blindly in front of him. Unbalanced, he stumbled and started to fall. Zerill’s hand snapped out to grab him, but she was a moment too slow; her fingers closed on air. Still guarding his face with his right hand, Josen extended his other arm by instinct, trying to catch himself.

  His left arm.

  To his credit, he tried to stay quiet. His arm took his weight for an instant, and then buckled; he fell hard on his misshapen left side. It had to be pure agony—even under his clothes, Zerill could see knobs of twisted flesh seize and spasm—but he managed to strangle his cry of pain into a wordless gurgle. He tried his best.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “Did you hear that?” A knight’s voice, and a lantern swung in their direction from the north—one of the search groups that had already moved ahead of their position.

  Zerill’s fingers flicked a curse, and she swatted away a straggling bat as it flapped past her face. She nudged Verik, and tilted her head toward Josen. Get him up, she signed. The knights knew where to look now; she had to move quickly.

  Verik hesitated, uncertain. Shouldn’t you take him?

  At any other time, it would have been a sensible question—most of Verik’s strength was already devoted to maintaining the fog. It would have been a sensible question, if there had still been some way for all three of them to escape.

  But Zerill knew that there wasn’t.

  All of the nearby lanterns were moving in their direction now, beams of light cutting through the mist dangerously near. And there was something else: Zerill could hear someone not far to the south. Quiet breathing, cloth brushing against a boggrove trunk. A highlander, trying to be quiet. Not succeeding very well, but quiet enough to get too close while Zerill was distracted by the lights of the others. And where there was one highlander, there were probably more. Whoever it was hadn’t seen anything yet, or some signal would have been sounded, but it meant that just avoiding lanterns wasn’t going to be enough anymore. They needed another way out, and she could only think of one.

  The same way Azlin had made for her, once.

  Zerill’s fingers moved rapidly. Too many. Need a distraction. You two go. If the knights were looking in the wrong direction, two might sneak by where three couldn’t. She sliced a hand through the air when Verik moved to protest. Do this for me. Please.

  And he did. He knelt and pulled Josen’s arm around his neck, even though she knew he hated it.

  Hold the fog as long as you can, she signed. But save some strength. You’ll need it to keep him safe. Stay hidden until their attention is on me, and then find a gap and run. Get far away from here. And do not come back.

  Zerill, I… if you don’t…

  No time, Verik. She clasped his arm, and hoped he could read in her eyes some of what she wished she could say.

  Verik swallowed and nodded miserably. Then… just try not to let this be goodbye.

  Slumped against Verik’s side, Josen watched their signs intently. She could tell he wanted to ask what they were saying, but he was smart enough to stay quiet. For now. When Verik tried to take him away, he would almost certainly protest, unless she gave some explanation. He could hardly stand, but he’d resist all the same.

  “You have to go with Verik,” she whispered. “I will draw their attention.”

  “We can’t leave you.” Josen winced—even speaking softly had to be painful on his freshly aggravated injuries. And he was still too loud. “They’ll kill you if they catch you.”

  “Go, or they catch all three of us. The fog will not last.” She kept her voice low, but stern. “You will find no haven in Greenwall. Your friend is with Castar now. I saw them together. You must find another way to tell your people the truth, or this was all for nothing.”

  Josen shook his head. “She wouldn’t—” But he didn’t have time to finish. His mouth snapped shut as a light fell over them, casting long shadows into the fog.

  “There! Someone’s over there!” The highlanders couldn’t have seen much through the mist, but it was thinning every second. Soon there would be no cover at all, and then a distraction would serve little purpose.

  “Go!” Zerill shoved Verik into motion. He stumbled forward a step, looked back over his shoulder, and then lowered his head, gripped Josen’s waist, and ran.

  Zerill looked north, shading her eyes against the lantern’s brightness. In the thinning mist, she could make out the shapes of men coming nearer, passing in and out of sight through the trees and hanging vines. Her hand trembled, and she breathed in deep to steady herself. Whatever it takes.

  Verik hadn’t been wrong to worry about goodbyes. When they found her, the highlanders would show no mercy. They never did, for the Abandoned. And if her life was part of the cost of peace, she was willing to pay it. It was no more than she owed, if even one of Korv’s hunters had fallen into highlander hands because of her.

  But she didn’t have to make it easy.

  Zerill tightened her grip on her spear and started toward the light.

  Shona

  Shona had nearly reached the light she was using as a guide when it bobbled and dropped to the ground. At the same moment, a startled man shouted, “Who—” and then fell abruptly silent. Something struck the fallen lantern, and it bounced and skipped away, coming to rest on its side against a thick boggrove tree some fifteen yards away.

  The lantern’s hood directed most of its light up the vine-wrapped trunk, but some spilled around the edges—enough that Shona could still see silhouettes moving in the dark ahead. The remaining knights moved to surround their fallen comrade, and one of them called out, “Swamplings! We’re under attack!” Several groups were already converging on their location, and more lights started moving to answer the call.

  A flicker of motion in the dark, and this time Shona heard the sound of the blow as another man stumbled and fell. The attacker—the woman she’d followed here, she had to assume—was gone again faster than Shona could track, merging with the surrounding shadows even as the knights turned toward the noise. Where did she go?

  Shona drew Eroh closer, as much to comfort herself as to protect him. She had no idea why this woman was helping Josen—there was no reason to believe that she wasn’t dangerous. And now she was moving through the darkness nearby, silent and invisible; she’d already hurt or killed two Knights of the Storm.

  Spirit of All, why am I just now realizing how bad an idea this was? Pulling Eroh with her, Shona pressed herself against a nearby tree and tried to quiet the sound of her breathing. She didn’t know where Goldeyes was—the little eagle was gone from Eroh’s shoulder, and she prayed he wouldn’t draw attention to them by returning now.

  “Just stay together,” one of the knights ordered. “We can pin her down—damn it!” An impact, something ringing against his mail, and he grunted in pain. “There! Get her!”

  Eroh craned his head out of hiding to watch. “She’s so fast,” he breathed, the usual calm of his voice giving way to what sounded very much like admiration.

  Shona peeked out from behind the boggrove and watched the four dark figures exchange blows through the rapidly evaporating mist. One of the knights was favoring his left leg—he’d clearly been injured—but the other two pursued the retreating woman. She parried one man’s attack with her spear, feinted a jab at the other, and tried to break away, but the wounded knight had limped partway around her left side. He swung his saber. She leapt back, already spinning, and slammed the butt of her weapon into the neck of one of the men behind her. Shona heard a crunching sound, and the man slumped to the ground, choking and clutching at his throat.

/>   The woman dodged a blow from the one knight she’d yet to hurt, hurdled over the collapsed man at her feet, and sprinted away—directly into the path of another party of knights approaching from the east. A circle of light landed on her, drawing her shape against the dark in shades of yellow and orange.

  And now Shona could see her face.

  She was everything a swampling was supposed to be: ghost-pale, with yellow-white hair and huge black eyes like circles of onyx. And she’d fought like the stories said, too—quick and savage as a beast, but far more cunning, and utterly merciless. She could have been the embodiment of every awful tale ever told about her people. Just looking at her made Shona’s hands tremble against Eroh’s shoulders. But I heard her talk to Josen, clear as sky, and the stories all say swamplings don’t speak. She hadn’t been able to make out most of the words, but it had sounded very much like this particular swampling was trying to keep Josen safe. She can’t be the animal she’s supposed to be. Can she?

  “Stop her!” shouted the limping knight, pointing his sword after the fleeing swampling.

  Four of the approaching men fanned out in a half-circle, and the fifth followed a few steps back, holding his lantern high. The two men behind the swampling spaced themselves to block her retreat in that direction and advanced to close the circle. The mist was all but gone now, and there would be no more advantage of darkness; the woman was surrounded and heavily outnumbered. She couldn’t win.

  They’ll kill her. And even though Shona had come to stop that from happening, she couldn’t make her feet move, couldn’t force words from her suddenly dry throat. This was a fear that went all the way back to childhood tales about witches and monsters in the Swamp; a part of her somewhere deep down, impossible to ignore. She wanted to say something, do something to save this woman. She wanted to learn—finally—what had really happened to Josen, what had started all of this. But more than anything, she just wanted to keep those coal-black eyes from turning in her direction.

  Instead of waiting for the men to close in on her, the swampling woman turned her back to Shona and rushed a gap in the circle. The knights on either side stepped in to block her. Ducking under one man’s sword, she jabbed her spear into his exposed armpit; the weapon sank deep, and the knight fell to his knees. She jerked her spear free, tried to raise it to block a slash from the other man.

  She wasn’t fast enough.

  The blade opened her flesh from her collarbone to her shoulder, only missing her throat by inches. She took it without a sound. Another swipe forced her back toward the knights behind her. She was moving awkwardly now; in the lantern-light Shona could see blood flowing openly down her arm and chest. The woman looked around for some other escape, found none.

  The knight who had wounded her slashed again. She blocked the blow, just barely, and weakly pushed the saber aside. She retreated a step, half-turned away—but there was nowhere else to go. Swords surrounded her on all sides. The man behind her raised his sword to strike.

  “No!” Eroh pulled free of Shona’s grip, leapt out from behind the tree.

  At the same moment, something dropped from the canopy high above.

  Goldeyes shot down from the treetops like an arrow, directly at the knight behind the swampling woman. At the bottom of the dive, the little eagle spread golden wings, let out a piercing cry—the first sound Shona had ever heard him make—and raked his talons at the man’s face.

  “Lord of Eagles!” the man cried out, stumbling back in shock.

  Now. The eagle’s cry sent Shona’s heart racing—and somehow, put her feet back under her control. She forced herself to move, lunged from her hiding place and into the lantern-light. “Wait! We need her!”

  Though they kept their swords levelled at the swampling woman, the knights looked toward Shona and Eroh nearly as one. One man, the knight with the injured leg, called out, “Lady Shona? What are you—”

  “Duke Castar wants her alive.” She’d have to find a way to make Castar agree with that, but right now it was all she could think to say.

  To a man, they looked utterly dumbstruck, but none of the knights dared to disobey. The swampling tried to strike one last time as they closed in, but her blow was easily turned aside, and then two men wrested her spear from her grasp and threw it into the mud.

  “Watch her feet!” the limping knight said. “Bitch got me with those spurs. Lucky I’ve already had the fever, or I’d have it for sure now. If you haven’t, keep back.”

  Even as he spoke, the woman lashed out with one leg. The knight she aimed at dodged away, loosening his hold on her arm. She wrenched it free, and slammed her fist into the face of the man holding the other; his head snapped backwards. She used the instant that bought to draw her knife and aim a wild slash at his face.

  It didn’t land.

  The second knight kept his grip with one hand, and caught her wrist with the other. He twisted, hard. She didn’t cry out, but her fingers opened, and her knife joined her spear in the muck underfoot. “Bitch!” the man swore through a bloodied nose, and then he backhanded her across the face with a studded leather glove.

  The swampling took the blow without a sound, but it stunned her long enough for another man to grab her free arm. Soon, they had her grappled and held fast, while two more Storm Knights yanked the spurred boots from her feet and tossed them aside.

  She was still struggling, despite her wounds, when the knights spun her roughly around to face Shona. A thin line of blood dripped from one corner of her mouth. Her eyes were cold, and dark as obsidian; they fixed on Shona, and held fast.

  Fear closed Shona’s throat, a fear she knew was irrational but was helpless to stop. Don’t be stupid. She’s trapped. Helpless. But somehow, staring at a creature from her childhood nightmares, that didn’t matter. For a long moment, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything but return that black stare.

  And then Goldeyes glided in front of her, breaking her eyeline, and whatever spell she’d been under. Shona drew in a relieved breath as the little eagle settled back into place on Eroh’s shoulder.

  The swampling woman traced Goldeyes’ path too, and when she saw the boy, her struggles ceased. Her eyes widened so that her face looked almost like a skull—two big black sockets against bone-white skin. One hand twitched in what might have been a signal or a sign, and with something like reverence, she said, “You are of the Abandoned.” Then, much louder, in that strange too-fast accent, “You are one of us! You must not let them use you!”

  Most of the knights reacted with slack-faced shock to a swampling speaking their tongue. Then, offended by the sound of her voice—or maybe just that she had a voice at all—one heavyset man’s surprise hardened into anger. “Quiet, witch!” He struck the base of her skull with his saber-hilt, and the woman went limp in the arms of her captors.

  Shona grabbed Eroh’s hand and took another step forward. “If you’ve killed her…”

  “She still breathes, Lady Shona.” The big knight looked pointedly at the fallen bodies nearby. “More than some of us can say.”

  She didn’t know how to answer. This woman had killed four knights—she couldn’t blame these men for wanting to hurt her. But it was hard for Shona to feel a great deal of sorrow for the same soldiers who were helping Castar hold her hostage and steal her duchy.

  “Just make sure she keeps breathing,” she said at last. “Put pressure on her wounds. If she bleeds to death, it will be on your heads. We need to get her back to the road. Which way is it?”

  Before the knights could answer, Lenoden Castar’s voice called out from behind her. “This way, my dear.” Shona half-turned to see him stride into the lantern-light with Eian Gryston at his side, some two dozen men following behind.

  “Shona!” Eian closed the distance ahead of the others and threw his arms around her, lifting her off the ground. “Thank the Above!”

  The saber he’d picked up was tucked in his belt, and the hilt jabbed into Shona’s hip. “I’
m glad to see you too, Eian, but… your sword.” She was surprised Castar had let him keep it.

  “Oh! I’m sorry, I…” He released her and stepped back. “I was worried. I looked for you, but the mist… I feared the worst.”

  “We both did,” Castar said as he drew near. “I almost entertained the notion that you’d grown tired of my hospitality. Foolish of me, I see now. You were only trying to look after the boy, I suppose.” He reached down to ruffle Eroh’s hair, but didn’t look away from Shona.

  She met his eyes steadily. “What else? I would have to be mad to choose the Swamp over the pleasure of your company, Duke Castar.”

  “That is very good to hear.” Apparently satisfied, Castar turned his attention toward the unconscious woman and the knights holding her upright. “Now, would someone be so kind as to tell me what exactly happened here?”

  Ah, right. How do I explain this in a way that convinces you to keep her alive?

  Before Shona could put together even half of a compelling story, Eroh interceded. “She fought them,” he said, looking at the swampling with something like awe. “She almost won, except more knights came.”

  Castar looked at the six knights left standing and quirked an eyebrow upward, but remained silent. Only the big knight who’d knocked the swampling unconscious met the duke’s eyes, and even he looked uncomfortable. “It was dark,” the man said gruffly. “Killed four before we could stop her. Lady Shona said you wanted her alive.”

  “Did she now?” Castar glanced sidelong at Shona, stroked a knuckle against his beard, and then approached the swampling woman. “This is our screamer, then? A swampling? Rather noisy for her kind.”

  One of the other knights stepped forward—the man with the injured leg, still limping. “She… spoke, too. Told the boy he was one of them.”