They could feel a sense of suffocation that squeezed the life out of everything just as they could feel numberless eyes upon them, watching malevolently from the shadowed trees and undergrowth.
‘Where to now, boss?’ asked Finwald, his fear prompting him to say something, anything.
Nibulus thought for a minute. ‘He didn’t come this way,’ he said at last, ‘so we’d better turn back . . . Come, follow me.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, the company wheeled about to depart this hateful spot. As he too made to turn about, Gapp’s gaze was held by a sudden movement in the pool of slime. Curious little amphibians were popping their heads up through its clammy surface to regard him with unknowable intent. He did not wish to tarry a moment longer, but still he looked on, transfixed.
It seemed to him that, as he watched, other small, pale shapes materialized out of the murk. What it was he was looking at he could not at first tell, feeling confused. Little shapes now hung from the trees, hanging limp or swaying slightly. Paper? Old clothes, like laundry that had been hung up to get damp and filthy? But as he stared, it became apparent that they were too tenuous and ragged to be human clothing.
A darker level of fear now leaked into his soul. These were not clothes; they were skins, hairless skins hanging upon every twig.
Human skins. The flayed hides of infants. Baby-skins all around.
Then, with a great, belching suck of mud, the elusive figure for whom they had earlier been searching rose out of the swampy depths and loomed before them all, its all-encompassing robe dripping with slime from surely the rankest corpse-filled drainage ditch in hell’s lowermost level. Its blackness seemed to fill the entire hollow, and any doubts they had had before about this place were now replaced by an absolute certainty. For one second they all froze, then they turned and bolted out of the clearing.
Behind them a shrill howling rose from the gaping mouth of the swamp-thing, sending shudders through the earth that seemed to bring the whole hollow alive. The trees shook violently as an unearthly wind raged through them, their limbs thrashing about like claws intent on cutting off the petrified men from any retreat. Beneath them the ground began to crawl and seethe, while the undergrowth whipped towards them, curling tendrils around their horses’ legs. Into this chaos rose the human and animal cries of bewilderment, fear, frustration and sheer panic, as all twelve victims flailed about helplessly to escape such manifestations.
Then, below them, the pool began to swell.
It all happened so suddenly. The firm ground beneath was transformed into a sucking morass that began to swallow them up, while behind them the baying horror in the swamp rose up and up till it hovered over them.
As they felt their mounts sinking fast despite the beasts’ terrified attempts to lunge free of the clutching mire, it soon became clear that they were going nowhere but down. For the riders too, as the trees and bushes continued to lash their unprotected faces, escape seemed increasingly impossible.
While the fey creature of darkness continued to wail like a satanic choir, Gapp leapt from Bogey’s back to try to drag him by the curb rein out of the death-pool. But the boy landed in the mud and immediately sank up to his knees, while before him Bogey reared up this way and that, screaming horribly and eyes rolling in fear. Gapp still tugged desperately at the rein, but as his eyes met those of his pony, now up to its chest in mud, he saw defeat there. Bogey knew he was about to be swallowed up completely, and his screaming reached a new pitch of terror. It was much the worst sound Gapp had ever heard in his life and he knew, one way or another, he would take the memory of it with him to the grave.
Close by the fully barded Hammerhoof had sunk in up to its withers, and continued to sink further. Nibulus had already lost his balance and tumbled out of the saddle, landing with a great squelch in the quicksand, his armour also dragging him down.
‘Radnar!’ he cried. ‘Come! Loosen my armour – I’m sinking!’
But amidst all the howling, thrashing pandemonium, Gapp was no longer thinking of his master. As Bogey disappeared up to his neck, the boy tried one last time to haul the doomed animal out of the pit. Then, sobbing like a child and blinded by tears of remorse, he drew his shortsword and, as Bogey craned his neck up in one last attempt to breathe, Gapp leant over and cut short the poor beast’s agony.
The shadow that hung over them swelled in size and malignancy, and seconds later, amid further curses and promises of a vengeance from his master, Hammerhoof the faithful Knostus disappeared beneath the bubbling surface, hauled under by the weight of his Tengriite barding.
More swelling from the huldre, as if it fed upon the life-forces of the dying.
Desperately casting about for any last chance for himself, the rapidly vanishing Nibulus cried out to the three holy men.
‘Finwald, Wodeman, Appa – do something!’
It was the undeniable voice of command and it sliced through the chaos instantly. A dazzling pulse of blue-white lightning crackled forth from Finwald’s outstretched palm and smote the marsh phantom straight in the spot where its heart should have been. A second later, a deep throbbing dirge from Wodeman rose above the wailing cry of their enemy – which, undulating sickeningly and still smoking from the power Finwald had sent against it, began to diminish slowly. So too did the flailing plant-life, recoiling from this shamanistic invocation.
In spite of his predicament, Nibulus’s eyes smiled broadly. Not so bad after all.
Then Gapp at last remembered his duty to his master. He leapt towards the sinking warrior and grasped his gauntleted hand in a futile attempt to hold him back from the all-consuming swamp. For a brief moment their eyes met, and Gapp recognized what he saw there. Unlike Bogey’s eyes, filled with terror and despair, in Nibulus’s there shone only life – courageous life full of vitality and scornful of death. In his uniquely stubborn way, Nibulus was almost smiling, and Gapp felt sure then that it would take a whole lot more than this disaster to put an end to the son of Artibulus. In that brief moment both were joined as one, a new understanding of each other breaking down all barriers of age, status and innate character.
Both of them held on for grim life, and waited.
And through the screeching, the throbbing, the screaming, cutting through the entire cacophony that raged about the hollow, a gentle voice now sounded. Though dulcet and placid in tone, it echoed throughout the woodland with a quiet power harmonious and irrefusable. Both Gapp and his master swivelled their heads about in wonder, unable to locate the source.
It came from Appa. Up to his midriff in the fetid, undulating quagmire, the mage-priest yet maintained a countenance of deepest tranquillity. A golden-white halo radiated from him as he spoke his prayer, and peace was in his eyes.
With a gibbering wail of vexation and despair, the thing from the pool shrank away from the priest, recoiling from the elemental power of his god. In rasping ululations it sank back into its pool, still smoking from Finwald’s thunderbolt, and was gone.
The limits of the death-pool receded, the baby-skins slowly vanished, the trees calmed their fury – and they were in darkness once more.
Stunned by the sudden quiet, the men just sat there, shaking violently. Then a hoarse cry from Nibulus snapped them back to their immediate reality, and they jumped up and rushed over to haul him out of the quicksand.
They were all so grateful to be alive they could think of nothing else for several more minutes. Not the fey terror of that unholy apparition nor its abysmal lair, nor the deaths of their beloved horses, nor the ruination they felt in their bodies, nor the starvation that yet faced them, nor the loss of their baggage to the sucking slime. They had survived, and every minute from now on would be a gift.
Then they heard something moving towards them through the woods.
No one moved, no one breathed. But also no one felt fear, for there simply was none left in them after their ordeal.
The sound of footstepts drew nearer, and a light, bobbing uncertainly.
Then, just at the opposite side of the clearing, a head poked through the tangled curtain of foliage and cobwebs.
It belonged to a plump, red-faced, middle-aged woman, holding a staff in one hand and a lantern in the other.
‘’Scuse me,’ she said (in Aescalandian, they noted; and never before had their own tongue sounded so welcome), ‘but ’ave you young men got any idea what time it is? I can ’ardly getta wink o’ sleep wi’ all this racket goin’ on!’
SEVEN
Nym
THEY STARED ACROSS THE dismal swamp in bewilderment.
After the dreadful ordeal which had left Paulus, Wodeman and Appa unconscious, and deprived them of four of their mounts, those remaining knew they had nothing left in them. Any further hostile encounter now would be the finish of them.
So it was with immense relief (and no small amount of confusion) that they beheld the woman who stood before them. Wearing neither furs nor skins, and apparently unarmed save for the knobbly stick she clutched in one hand, she was obviously not of barbarian stock. A drab, russet-coloured gown snagged with bits of twig clothed her plump form, over which was draped a grey cloak that had seen better days and a woollen shawl with a faded pattern. She could have been a traveller, as her unkempt appearance suggested, yet there was something too rustic, too homely, about her. She looked more like a simple Aescalandian villager – and entirely out of place in this terrible wilderness.
‘Wha’s goin’ on, Nym?’ came a muted voice indistinctly from somewhere behind her. The exhausted southerners’ eyes immediately narrowed as they began to perceive shapes moving about in the darkness beyond.
‘Grockles,’ the woman replied, ‘caught inna bog.’
Her companions – several of them by the sound of it – seemed reluctant to come any closer, and continued shuffling about hesitantly under the cover of the trees. She, alone of them, drew closer and stood over the men who still lay panting on the ground. But though she faced them squarely and glared irately, they could sense she was nervous and still clutched her knobbly stick tightly.
‘You a’right? Don’ look too well to me . . . You boys bin inna fight?’
An ironic laugh escaped the Peladane’s lips as he gazed thankfully up at her. It was a plump, florid face lined with the creases of late middle-age, but the eyes held, within their earthy brownness, a clarity hinting at a vitality that was forever young.
Nibulus rose to his feet with difficulty, bowed slightly to her and said, ‘Good evening, old lady, I am thankful to—’
‘Wha’s him sayin’, Nym?’ came a disembodied voice from the trees again.
‘Bletherin’,’ Nym replied, not taking her disapproving eyes off the strangers. Then, waving her stick at them, she motioned them to make haste and follow her out of the hollow.
‘Come on, come on!’ she scolded them. ‘Don’ do to hang about here, you’m.’
As quickly as they could, the travellers hauled their still senseless companions onto the remaining horses and hastened after her, leaving behind them forever the bubbling pool that had claimed four of their mounts.
‘Myst-Hakel?’ Nibulus cried out after her, as she disappeared ahead of them. ‘How far?’
‘Just yonder,’ she gestured without stopping. It seemed clear that she did not like this place any more than they did. The sounds of her companions – family, fellow villagers or whatever they were – could also be heard up ahead, then also others on either side of them, and before long even some behind them.
On through the lightless woods they were led, wondering what fate could befall them next.
Her name, it seemed, was Nym-Cadog, and she lived alone in a small cottage not twenty minutes’ walk away from the hollow. Whether she was reluctant to linger near the stinking pool for any longer than was necessary, she certainly was not hanging about there. Not for anyone, nor anything. Not on this night.
Struth, can she shift herself! Gapp marvelled, as he and the others tried to keep up with her. She may well have been on more familiar ground here than they, but it seemed to the gasping travellers, as they plunged through the trackless woods, that the old girl was positively streaking ahead.
All the while the other villagers continued to escort them unseen. In truth, it began to get a little unsettling, for though they kept pace with Nym and her charges, they also kept their distance, as if refusing to allow the wayfarers to come too close. They could be spotted only as occasional dark figures out there in the woods, or heard only as the odd sniggering or strange fluttering.
It was a long twenty minutes and when, eventually, they came to the edge of the woods and arrived at her house, the other villagers had disappeared. Gone off to their own homes, no doubt – in any case, they were not here now. In the gloom all Nibulus and his men could make out was the vague shape of a cottage, a simple peasant’s hovel, set in a clearing and surrounded by a small picket fence. It had one door, two windows, one on either side, and there in front of the gate waited Nym.
They drew up sharply. She was stood there like a featureless moon-shadow, silent, absolutely motionless, staring straight back at them.
‘Nym?’ Nibulus enquired.
The shadow stirred to motion them forwards.
‘Through here,’ they heard her say at length, leading the way through the gate and into her cottage.
Having tethered Quintessa and Paulus’s mare to the gateposts, and bit by bit hauled all their baggage – human and otherwise – through the door, inside they found themselves in a small room dimly lit by four or five tallow candles that sputtered smokily in little niches set in the walls. In this murky light it was difficult to see much, beyond a dirt floor carpeted with dried rushes that gave off the dusty pungency of late summer. In the middle of the room a large and ancient cauldron hung from a tripod, its gridiron, spit and trivet all layered with a thick, black grease that exuded the same odour as late nights at the Pig & Gristle in Lower Kettle Market.
Next to it was a crudely constructed yet comfortable-looking rocking chair that had worn two deep lines into the dried grease on the floor, with a small, vinegary-smelling jug and a massive water pitcher by its side. There was also a large table of solid oak set against the far wall, and a simple bench that consisted of a plank laid atop two squat logs.
Apart from this, there was little to see save two doors in the opposite wall, one on the left and one on the right.
‘I’ll just be a minute. Make y’selves at home,’ Nym said, indicating the floor.
Looking doubtfully about themselves, the guests remained standing while their hostess disappeared through the right-hand door. A moment later she returned with a huge pile of blankets, rugs and fleeces, dumped them heavily on the floor and quickly set about building a fire. Within a surprisingly short time she had kindled a sizeable blaze, and hefting the pitcher in her stocky arms, she poured all its contents into the cauldron.
Nibulus cleared his throat. ‘We really are most grateful for your hospitality, my good woman,’ he said as graciously as he could, ‘and rest assured you will be rewarded most handsomely for your kindnesses. I still have not introduced myself. My name is Nibb, a soldier of fortune from the South, and these are my companions. We travel to Godtha, far away beyond the Herdlands of the Tusse, and we were passing this way when we were waylaid in these woods by some foul shade of Evil.’
Neither acting nor lying came easily to the Peladane, for it was not something that one such as he had much need or desire of. But he had no intention of giving anything away about his identity or purposes until he felt surer about this Nym-Cadog and her kind. In any case, whether the woman saw through his mendacity or not, she did not let on. Neither did she show any particular interest in what he had just said, or give any indication that she even knew what a soldier of fortune was. She simply went about her obligations as a hostess, and said nothing.
When she had finished building the fire she retreated into the shadows, and the company eagerly gathered around it. Leaving the re
cumbent forms of their companions still upon the floor for a while, they warmed their hands and stared deep into the hungry red flames that danced and crackled before their eyes. Ignoring Nym, who kept coming and going, they savoured the warmth that gradually permeated their damp, chilled bodies, welcoming it back like an old friend. As the fire grew apace and sent a column of smoke and sparks billowing up through the hole in the roof, light began to fill the room.
The insensible ones were tended, the remainder of their baggage sorted, and at last the four men were able to relax a little and take stock of their surroundings.
To be frank, this was not the sort of lodging any of them was used to. The main reason was the fetor: apart from the wood-smoke that had impregnated the soot-caked timbers of the low ceiling, and the mustiness that rose in curling tendrils of steam from their sodden clothing, there was the lingering odour of thousands of meals that had been cooked in this stuffy, badly ventilated hovel over the years.
It was a graveyard of fragrances, a memorial garden of scents, a Grand Hall of Remembrance for unsavoury, undying fumes.
But (and this was all that really mattered right now) it was indoors – a situation they had not found themselves in for nearly a month, and it was warm and dry. There was even a large tin bathtub in one corner waiting to be filled, and most welcome of all the saliva-inducing aroma of food being prepared.
Lots of food for a bunch of adventurers who had not eaten properly in weeks! Somehow, Nym-Cadog’s cottage did not seem too inhospitable a place after all.
One by one, during their lengthy repast, the exhausted and filthy travellers availed themselves of the bathtub. Both table and cauldron were kept topped up by Nym, who brought in a seemingly unending supply of food and fresh water from the next room, but who seemed otherwise content to leave her guests to themselves. Old clothes were discarded in a great sodden heap in one corner, and after each one of them had washed most of the muck off them, new garments were donned.
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