Kunrad was staring at the reed curtain. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘We’ll do that, in my fashion. But after that, I think, we’ll keep watch by turns. Close watch.’
The fire that rose among the reedbeds as dark descended was not very large, but it shone like a red stone on dark velvet. Kunrad, on the midnight watch, hunched uneasily into his jerkin, and hoped it wasn’t going mouldy. Suddenly he sat up, and shook the young men snoring at his side. Olvar was up in the space of a breath, Gille, panting, reaching for his sword. ‘Not much like at home, is it?’ whispered Kunrad. ‘Listen – d’you hear something?’
They listened a moment, then turned anxious faces towards him. He nodded. ‘Not too loud, but getting closer! Keep down!’ They slithered on their bellies to the reed wall overlooking the rock, parting the stems just enough to peer through. At first there was nothing; then a small shape pattered past, its pale skin catching the faint fireglow. Another, and another, dancing, hopping, and then a whole crowd of them. Something else moved slowly and heavily in their midst.
The silence of it all was the terrible thing, like a dream. Kunrad swallowed nervously, and it sounded thunderous in his ears. The thing came level with him, and he held his breath. He could feel Gille shivering at his side. The faint light of the hidden moon glinted upon its back, also pale but bunched and knobbed and carunculated, a huge mound of warty greyish hide. Its head was another mound in front, high-crowned and wrinkled, with great heavy ears that flapped this way and that, not unlike the mammut they knew lived in Northland forests. The head lifted a moment, and large eyes gleamed momentarily. It was bald, but a fringe of dark hairs straggled here and there behind the ears. It snuffled softly, and the small figures shivered and clustered against its flanks; long blade-like incisor teeth were bared, and shining saliva welled out in strings. The thing moved ponderously forward on heavy fore and hindlimbs, splayed out to either side, and a clawed foot, foul and slimy, fell so close to the watchers it almost tore down their screening reeds.
Kunrad realised he was trembling too. He could see it all too clearly now. Bulging haunches, ending in a pointed, tailless stump, waddled slowly past with frightful strength; and the tiny things that capered two-legged around it were the same inhuman shape. Seeing them so openly, their proportions were wrong, their feet and hands too large, their limbs too spindly, their haunches pointing in the same manner. All their human traits were accidental, that was clear, mere growing stages of the huge four-legged beast that inched slowly forward now, each foot hovering and twitching before being slowly lowered, lest it make a sound. They were its young, its scouts and decoys, its acolytes and parasites, and the sudden tension in their bodies mirrored the bunching of its muscles.
With a horrible chittering hiss it sprang, straight at the dying glow and the faint plume of smoke that still lifted from it. The glow vanished, in a huge sucking splash, a barely liquid sound, and a horrible threshing. The little creatures shrilled in wild alarm, and the great bald head reared up out of the quaggy hole over which the fire was burning, on a floating mat of half-dried peat. It bucked and roared, a curious whistling bellow, but with such bulk it was having trouble fighting free. The little creatures scrabbled frantically around it, and were crushed or scattered heedlessly under those flailing paws. Kunrad sprang up, and the others behind him, still half-hidden in the reeds, raising the crossbows they had laid ready. At a range of seven or eight paces it was no shot, even in that light. Three bolts sang home, Gille’s in one massive eye, and the thing shrieked horribly. Still threshing, it rolled over, clawing at its eye, and sank back. The smaller creatures squalled and chittered, some sprang and snapped insanely at their assailants. Kunrad kicked one off his boot into the reeds, Olvar trod on another, with unpleasant results, and the rest scattered and fled.
The smiths snatched up their gear and sidled off through the high reeds, as silently as they could; not that anyone wanted to speak, just then. It was another mile before they found another patch dry enough to slump down on, and they sat in silence, constantly looking over their shoulders. It was one thing to hear about this awful place, and another to come up against some manifestation of it. To know that all day long they had been stalked, with uncanny care and intelligence … What else might be stalking them, now? The silence was more than Kunrad could stand.
‘Worth shifting the fire for, eh, Gille?’ he whispered. ‘A good idea of yours, that peat!’
Gille could only wheeze. ‘Your nasty suspicious nature! Look a gift fire in the mouth, eh?’
Olvar was looking back. ‘I suppose … they weren’t human at all, really, were they?’
‘I don’t know – no! Just some monstrous flesh-hungry thing – those teeth! Like a bear, maybe. And yet …’
‘The shape,’ shivered Gille. ‘And the gift of the kindling … You hear stories, you know. Listen, shouldn’t we be pressing on?’
Kunrad bit off the obvious comment. ‘If you say so, lad,’ he answered quietly. ‘Don’t overtax yourself.’
‘I’ll be ready again the moment it’s light!’
‘Me too!’ rumbled Olvar. ‘Sooner we’re out of here, the better.’
Kunrad nodded fiercely; but he was glad neither prentice had asked him how long that might be.
The next day passed, and the next, without any change, and the days after with little more. The sing and stab of insects became a constant monotonous undercurrent they hardly noticed. Here and there, away from the channels, the reeds seemed to become more varied, with patches of a shorter kind, no higher than their knees, that allowed them a brief glimpse of light and air. But soon enough all there was to see before or behind were the taller reed walls. ‘Torture by hope!’ groaned Gille, as they plunged into them yet again. ‘Like letting a man out of the condemned cell just long enough to see the gallows!’
Kunrad growled impatiently. Gille had a miserable knack of putting his own feelings into words, and making them more intense. Which was exactly what Kunrad had taken him on to do, but that didn’t make him any less irritating. Lack of sleep, too, was sapping Kunrad’s tolerance. Their last few nights had been spent, at best, curled up on some drier patch; at worst, huddled back to back under mist or drizzle, heads to knees, feeling the damp wick up through their clothes and boots. Fires were out of the question, and hot food. If they had not been Northerners, hardened to far worse cold, they would have died. Little wonder that the corsairs, mostly sothrans, succumbed more easily.
As it was, it seemed like an age since Kunrad had had dry feet. His skin was becoming blighted in places, soggy, sore and peeling off with his boots when he tried to dry them. Beneath the leather they were wrapped in a mass of rags now, torn-off strips of clothing held on by dried blood. The young men were beginning to suffer the same way. But worse, far worse, was the shadow that forever invaded their sleep, filling it with visions that jerked them awake, quivering with shock. What these were exactly, they never could remember, but they constantly hung over their dreams, and their minds during the days following. They took watches; but it was so common now for the watchers to doze off that it seemed hardly worth the trouble. When one rainy night, Olvar, on the dawn watch, sprang up with a shout, they were on their feet in a moment, swords in hand; but when there was nothing, they sagged and sat, groaning softly, without questions or reproaches. Any of them could have done the same.
Dawn came without further incident, but as they woke the light showed them the big prentice twitchy and uneasy, and with an odd hue to his face. ‘If it was me,’ said Gille judiciously, ‘I’d be green. Your copper’s developing a touch of verdigris.’
‘My guts aren’t too happy,’ admitted Olvar. ‘Maybe I did swallow a drop of that channel. And – well, the shapes, they were just mist catching the breeze, I know that. Up above the reed-tops … But I did hear something, something heavy, moving. Thataway, a long way off, or I’d have woken you earlier.’ He pointed.
Kunrad held up his bracelet. ‘That’s the way we’re going. My turn for the d
awn watch tomorrow, isn’t it?’
They all flinched at a sudden flurry of wings, but it was more gulls, higher this time. ‘Why don’t they cry?’ muttered Olvar. ‘It’s not natural! I wish they’d cry!’
Even as he said it, one of them broke and wheeled, screeching raucously. Others answered. ‘Now why didn’t they do that a few days back? They can’t shut up for a minute, normally. Worse than Gille.’
Gille didn’t rise to the bait. He stared around. ‘Maybe because we had – company, then. Maybe they sensed what was following us.’
‘Well,’ said Kunrad, ‘they’re noisy enough, now, aren’t they? That’s a good sign. Maybe we should watch out for it. Now, on your feet!’
The march that day, as on the days ahead, was a longer one, for they were moving away from the rivers and channels now. The waters seemed to be growing less brackish, the tide-swell less apparent, but the ground ahead was becoming still more soggy and treacherous. The reedlands were cut across by larger pools and stagnant ponds that they had to skirt, at endless trouble and annoyance, slipping and stumbling in shallow streams choked half solid with green slimy strings and tangles of coarse weed. Even waterlilies looked bleak and colourless in this green monotony, and the few other flowering plants appeared weak and overborne by the reeds, whose endless shadow cut out so much of the light, grey and overcast as it was. Here and there among them grew wide stands of black rushes, and these were the worst of all, sharp-edged and pointed as if the marsh had teeth. The first unwary foray through them left the three smiths bleeding and cursing. The smell was worse here than it was in the channels, and sometimes great bubbles of bad air came gurgling up under their feet, and made them feel breathless and giddy.
It had not always been this way, this levelled sink of corruption. The fallen trunks of great trees, half rotted or shrivelled and mummified by the peat, thrust out here and there like vainly clutching hands from a foundered world. Dripping creepers choked them, bloated fungi sprang from them, mosses encrusted them and living slime, dully phosphorescent in the dark hours, made them one with the dank pools around about; but there were often no better places to sit and seize a moment’s heartsick rest. Olvar in particular needed it. He seemed as tireless as ever, but moved as if his bulk was become a burden to him; he was sweating heavily, more silent than usual, and from time to time his guts rebelled violently. Kunrad would hold back unobtrusively to help him, but that left Gille, who trod lightest, leaping impatiently ahead. His fears seemed rather to spur him on than teach him caution, and often Kunrad had to call him sharply back before they lost sight of him altogether. When late one afternoon, two days later, they heard a sudden rustle and thump, and then silence, Kunrad sprang forward, fearing the worst, and Olvar floundered after him. But almost at once Gille reappeared, clambering over a wide tree-bole, arms flailing to wave them down. He clapped his hand over his mouth and pointed frantically. They sidled up more quietly then.
There was a gap visible through the reeds ahead, a wide gap that led off in two directions, around sharp bends. ‘A path, by the Powers!’ wheezed Olvar.
‘Paths don’t just make themselves!’ whispered Gille. Kunrad nodded, and lowered himself gingerly off the crumbling wood. A couple of small brown birds flew up from a puddle, but nothing else moved. His feet touched ground, solid ground, only slightly spongy and carpeted with grass and small flat-growing weeds, not reeds or rushes. Here and there the earth was torn up, tarry-black and oozing. The gap looked about ten feet wide, and at either side the eternal reeds were flattened and broken. ‘What you heard the other morn, I think, Olvar. Some things went this way all right – heavy things.’ He held up the bracelet thoughtfully. ‘You know, this almost looks as if it follows the solid ground, what of it there is. That’d make sense. It could lead our way, for a while anyhow. I think it’s worth trying, as long as we keep an eye open. And ear.’
The prentices jumped down after him, almost unsteady on land that didn’t subside. ‘Not much worse than anywhere else here!’ said Olvar fretfully. ‘Powers, what a place! What an awful bloody place! And there’s a nice new smell of some sort. How much longer do you reckon, boss?’
Kunrad looked around, as they trudged carefully off down the cleared space. The waders had settled to their puddle again, darting only the occasional beady glance at the newcomers. ‘Peaceful enough, for now. I don’t know, lad. Days, for sure. As I remember the maps, the Marshes narrow as you get further inland, but that’s about the only thing certain. I’m hoping we can strike south-east in a while – along one of the trade-trails, hopefully, or one of the river channels. More than that I can’t say.’
‘Could this be a trade-trail?’ demanded Olvar hopefully.
Kunrad looked up at the rushes curving in over them. ‘Doesn’t look like it, not a wagon-trail. Too narrow. Those leaves close over at the top, almost. More like … a tunnel. As if feet had passed here, and compacted it. And it looks to run east–west, not north–south.’
Gille looked around warily. ‘Don’t go forgetting the corsairs. They raid inland and vanish, don’t they? Maybe along hidden routes like this. That something Olvar heard the other morn – couldn’t have been a search party, could it?’
Olvar thumbed his chin. ‘No. It was – one noise, not many. And not loud, but solid.’
Gille looked around. ‘Could it have been a boat dragged along? Could this be a portage between channels?’
‘You know, it sounded a lot like that. And I’ve heard such things.’
Silence. ‘Well,’ said Kunrad. ‘We’ll just have to hear them coming, that’s all.’
That night they spent on the strange path. As Kunrad had suspected, its winding course took them from one solid spot to the next, with as little interruption as possible. The going was far easier for Olvar, and they made much better time before they stopped for some of their dwindling provisions. ‘Leagues further, and with less effort!’ sighed Gille, washing down the last dry scrap of his portion of biscuit and jerked meat. ‘And it’s almost dry enough to sleep on, even – o noble mosses! Whom should we thank, I wonder?’
‘You might get a chance to find out!’ said Kunrad grimly. ‘You’re on first watch, remember? Better let Olvar sleep unbroken, we’ll split the dark hours between us. Wake me at moon’s height!’ And he rolled himself in the ragged blanket which was all his bedding, and snored almost at once.
When he released a yawning Gille to his sleep, the moon was high, and the clouds racing across it, more broken than by day. It ruffled the fronds above, so that the few stars visible flickered between them. Nothing else moved. Kunrad lost himself in thoughts of the past, and of other starlit nights when he had been Gille’s age, making the first painful essays at what that wretched brat seemed to find so easy and casual. He had become more at ease with women since then, of course. Things were sweet while they lasted; but they never had. When the first eager excitement waned, and he had begun to know the girls as people, they had seemed more ordinary, less interesting. He had been fond of them; he still was, mostly. But he had never wanted to share his life with them. His craft seemed more important, then, more exciting. Far away now, those nights, impossibly far, washed away on the vast River that men looked to in the heavens, from which they believed human life fell to earth, and to which it returned after death. Perhaps it too had perilous marshes along its course; and perhaps he was lost in those also. As well no woman waited for him at home; and yet he could not be glad of it. Adrift in this green hissing ocean, a man came to know the face of loneliness too well.
Some of the cloud seemed to be drifting lower. He looked up as it passed overhead. Too low to be cloud; mist, then. There was no shortage of that. He felt its chill settle upon him, and longed for day. Even Northerners could not survive here for ever. He was worried about Olvar.
He looked up again. The mist was thickening. Then shock stiffened him. He had seen a face in it, clearly. A boy’s face, maybe, eyes closed, mouth wide; a sleeping face, or a dead one. He rubbed his
eyes, though he did not doubt them; any excuse not to look up again. But he had to, hoping it would have drifted by. It had; but there were others. Each face in its own little flow or flurry of the mist, defined in its grey hues yet somehow more distinct, utterly unmistakable. Men, women, children, all a few feet above his head, all placidly asleep and nonetheless horribly disturbing. How was he even seeing them, in this light? Instinctively he stood up.
The moment his head rose above the reeds, instantly a face was staring into his, wide-eyed, snarling, while fingers icy but all too solid grappled at his throat. He clawed back the grasp, but saw nothing save the face, eyes narrowed and alight with malice and hungry intent. Teeth gaped, and misty breath numbed his cheek. Stinging revulsion lent him strength, and he flung the thing free as he might a stinging insect. At once it was a creamy wisp of mist scattered a foot from his face; and equally swiftly its loose tendrils twined together again, coalescing into that furious gaping mask. He had gained the moment to spring back, reaching for the hilt at his side. The new sword slid from the scabbard with a soft clear ring. The unstained edge slashed the air and struck the mist in two, without resistance; but something solid tumbled down the night, with a thin, high-pitched shriek, and splashed into a nearby pool. Kunrad sank down, blade upraised; but the mist drifted calmly by overhead, and to see faces in it was entirely fanciful.
Olvar, feverish and uneasy, lifted on one elbow. ‘Anything the matter?’
‘Tell you in the morning,’ coughed Kunrad, shaking his head. His mouth was dry, a stream only yards away through the deep rushes. He could wait until the light.
It came, with its fragment of extra warmth; but Kunrad was chilled more deeply. He had wished for company, and like a macabre joke it had come. Was the mist-thing some horrible human relict, or only the semblance of a mocking ice-spirit? The cold lingered, and left him no stomach for the bleak scraps of breakfast. He told the prentices as he walked, enough to warn them; but Olvar needed none. ‘I saw them too! Though never so clearly. I thought it was just the edge of sleep! But then – that was when this sickness of mine—’
The Castle of the Winds Page 17