by Ken Hood
Without warning, his feet slid from under him and he plunged into icy, inky blackness. He struggled upright, coughing and cursing and spitting. His mouth tasted of swamp and the water hurt in his nose. Now he was wet all over — his hair, his pack. He rescued his bonnet and tucked it in his belt. Cold was driving deep into his body, and he was the largest of all of them. How much of this could little Meg stand?
Two eyes glowed at him. He shied away and almost fell again before he remembered Rory's warning. The wisp was playing tricks. The eyes drifted apart and became just two globes of fire. Then three. A dark shape threatened amid the bulrushes. Giant worms writhed, pallid faces grimaced.
"Go faster!" he shouted. "We're all freezing!"
"Daren't!" Rory shouted, still strumming. "If I fall, we're done for."
Splash, splish… The lute sang discordantly, hitting unexpected pitches, dissonant trills. A face with glowing red eyes and green teeth loomed out of the mist. Toby waved an arm through it, dissolving it into streamers.
Silence. Rory had stopped moving and stopped playing. The water was up to his waist. "This is bad! In case you haven't guessed, we're in deep trouble."
"We're getting deeper just standing here!" Toby snapped. "Play on. Move!"
Their leader was barely visible in the darkness. "I was never this deep last night. The wisp is playing with us!"
Or the wisp was trying to kill them. It didn't like demons in its swamp? Monstrous white shapes moved in the darkness, glowing with more than moonlight. The very silence was menacing.
"We haven't much t-t-time, sir," Hamish wailed.
"Which light do you fancy? That one? Or that one? Let's try the green one, shall we?" Rory shrugged and began playing again, picking his way forward through the cruel, cold water.
The mud sucked harder. Their progress had slowed to a snail's crawl. Every step was a struggle to pull up a foot, balance in the sludge on the other leg, move the foot forward without tipping over, find bottom again… Toby could not feel his toes at all, which did not help.
Meg submerged with hardly a splash, but he felt the tug. He hauled in the line, dragging her to him. He scooped her up in his arms. She and her pack together weighed more than he expected, but she was a frozen, trembling waif. She coughed and gasped and clung to him. Now he could no longer keep a grip on the line to Rory. He sank deeper with every step. The muddy bottom sucked at his knees. Hamish's head went under and then reappeared, gasping that it was all right.
The music twanged painfully and stopped. Rory had gone. Toby almost overbalanced as the rope yanked him forward.
Then Rory came up right in front of him, his face plastered with mud and wet hair. "That's it!" he said hoarsely, between coughs. "I've lost the lute. The wisp won't cooperate without music. Sorry, children, but there's going to be four more ghoulies playing in the fog."
The glittering marsh monsters drifted closer. Every direction looked the same, the stars were hidden, and the cold was eating into bones. No sound except chattering teeth and thumping heart…
Demon! I'm dying!
Dum… Dum… Faint and muffled by the reeds, lost in the water sounds whenever anyone moved… It might be only his own normal heartbeat, but he thought it was coming from outside him, from over there, and in that case it must be a signal.
"Well, we can go faster without that damnable lute!" he said. "Follow me. Swim, or float on your backs. I'll tow you." Demon? Which way? Taking the lines over his shoulders, he plunged forward without waiting for argument.
He turned to the sound of the beat, clawing through sedge and bulrushes. No occult lavender glow came to lighten his path. The wisp's mocking beacons twinkled in red and green and blue, but he could barely see anything for the vegetation splattering water in his eyes. He felt no surge of demonic strength — this was Toby Strangerson fighting this battle, fighting for his life. Every few minutes he would pause and listen, locating that elusive thump, but to stop moving was to freeze, to sink deeper. Weeds clutched at his legs; the combined burden of Meg and his broadsword was driving him down. Rory and Hamish struggled along behind him, half wading, half floating, offering little resistance except when he had to pull them through tangles of sedge.
Dum… Dum… Why so faint? Why no demonic power? Was the bogy keeping the demon at bay? Were the two spirits locked in battle? Or was he imagining some foolish echo of his heart, struggling around in circles in the dark? Glowing faces bared fangs at him. His blood coursed and his lungs were bursting, but at least he must be warmer than the others. Would he arrive at the shore towing three corpses?
Ah! The ground was firmer and the water was down to his waist. The mist brightened overhead, taking on a sheen of moonlight.
"Almost there!" he yelled, and lost his footing as he trod on a painfully sharp stick. He went down in a bed of knives, it seemed, swallowed half the swamp, and struggled to his feet, helping Meg up. As he wiped the water from his eyes he saw the guards, a crowd of skeletal shapes looming out of the haze, arms spread to bar mortal intruders.
Rory was upright, teeth chattering wildly. "I know this part, it's a drowned forest. It's near the west shore, but we'll never get through it. Which way round? Left or right?"
Toby listened. Silence?
Rory cupped his hands and bellowed into the darkness: "Jeral? Cruachan!"
"Shut up!" Toby barked. "Be quiet."
More silence, just Hamish's chattering teeth — no, a faint dum… Dum…
"This way. Come on!" He scooped Meg up and set off again, letting the others wade behind or float as they could. The cold seemed to burn, it hurt so much. The water was below his waist now, yet he could move no faster, for the bottom was a tangle of branches and roots, hard and sharp. Deeper water would have helped to support his weight. Every muscle shuddered convulsively. Moonlight glowed brighter; pale wraiths floated between the dead white trees. The guardians seemed intent on barring the way to shore until the intruders froze to death, and surely that ending could not be many minutes off.
Almost without realizing, he had left the swamp and was scrabbling over a litter of driftwood, stumbling up a shingle bank, dragging the others behind him. Fire! He must have fire! If the water had penetrated his tinderbox, they were all going to die anyway.
Then his head came level with the land, and he saw light in the darkness — real flames, and none of the wisp's fox fire. A few hundred paces or so along the shore, someone was waving a lantern.
Rory shouted, "Cruachan!" again, and a faint cry responded, "Cruachan!"
CHAPTER FIVE
The cottage was very small, just four dry-stone walls roofed with branches and sod. Meg was the only one who could stand erect in it. There was no chimney, no covering for the doorway, and one corner of the roof had collapsed, but a heap of peat glowed in the center, giving at least the illusion of warmth. At some time in the past it had been used for livestock, yet it was shelter from the night, and the travelers huddled gratefully around the fire to thaw.
The man named Jeral had disappeared. Rory had sent him off somewhere, and Toby found that troublesome. Someone had cleaned out this little hovel and covered the floor with rushes to make it habitable, but not recently. That was even more worrying.
Four faces gleamed faintly in the firelight. The shivering had mostly stopped. Wet wool steamed.
"Are we safe from the bogy here, sir?" Meg inquired.
"Probably." Rory eyed Toby thoughtfully. "I expect it's busy burying my lute. It's probably forgotten all about us, and it never worries overmuch about dry land things anyway. I would like to know why it took such a scunner to us."
Meg missed the implications of that dangerous question. "Where are we, then?"
"We're in Glen Orchy, still. A few miles down we'll get to Strath of Orchy and Dalmally, but we can worry about that in the morning."
Poor Master Rory had lost his fine shoes; his feet stuck out of the remains of his socks. Pity poor Master Rory!
Toby was thinking about trees.
There were trees here. Trees implied an absence of people to turn them into lumber or firewood. No people meant no roads, no traffic. No one came through the haunted glen. But Rory did, and Rory now wore a black feather in his bonnet. The rebels had a shelter here that the English did not know about. The Jeral man had been sent off somewhere — possibly to fetch help.
Secrets were dangerous in time of war.
"I've been to Strath of Orchy!" Hamish announced. "That's where Kilchurn Castle is, and the laird's name is Hamish!"
Rory grunted. "Lord Hamish — Hamish Campbell, foster brother to the earl of Argyll."
The boy pulled a face. "How will you get by Kilchurn Castle, then, sir? It guards Pass of Brander, where the road's squeezed between the cliffs and the water—"
"We begin by hoping there are no Sassenachs there. Then we worry about Campbell traitors."
"But… you can see Ben Cruachan from Dalmally."
That innocent-seeming remark caused MacDonald of Glencoe to turn and stare at the boy. "What of it?"
Hamish flinched. "Nothing, sir! Ma says I talk too much."
"Sensible woman."
Hamish subsided, shooting one of his owlish looks at Toby — meaning he thought he knew something that Toby was too stupid to work out for himself.
Rory turned his attention back to Toby. "You haven't explained how you managed to lead us out of the bog."
"I have a good sense of direction."
"A superhuman sense of direction? You escape from dungeons, from hexers, from bogies? You have more lives than a cat!"
"I hope so."
The rebel wanted to know what had vexed the wisp, how a mortal man had found his way out in the dark. Was the young fugitive merely a spy, or was he one of Lady Valda's demonic creatures? Let him wonder! Toby did not know the answers himself.
Hamish yawned. Meg caught the infection.
"May as well sleep," Rory announced, but he did not move. "Miss Campbell is bound for Oban. You, lad?"
"Pa told me to go and stay with Cousin Murray in Glen Shira. The keeper of the shrine of Glen Shira."
Rory snorted. "Old Murray Campbell? You know him?"
"No, sir."
"You have an interesting experience in store, then. And you, Man Mountain? Wither goest thou, Big Man?" He raised sandy eyebrows, waiting for Toby's reaction. He was not actually sneering; he just seemed to, because of his eagle-beak nose.
"I promised to see Meg safely to Oban, and then—"
"That was very rash of you, Longdirk. You're not really up to being a reliable protector with your history of blundering into trouble." Rory was still dropping hints about demons, but he wasn't sure. "Suppose I come along to hold your hand and we get her there between us, what then?"
Yesterday morning, Vik Tanner had tried to make Toby lose his temper. Baiting had not worked then. It would not work now.
"Then I'm going to travel and see the world."
Be a prizefighter and win large amounts of money.
"Mm? Travel where? To the Lowlands? To England? There must be a price on your head by now, you know. An insultingly small one, I expect, but every penny counts, as they say. You're not the sort to disappear into a crowd — not unless you walk on your knees, that is. How do you plan to feed that oversized carcass of yours?"
"Honest work."
"Digging ditches?" The sneer was undeniable now. "You're an ignorant country lout who won't last a week in the real world."
Meg looked shocked, Hamish owlishly worried.
"That isn't your problem," Toby said steadily. Demons would be, though.
"Lady Valda is. Besides, you intrigue me, Shoulders. The Sassenachs are hunting you; you killed one of them. You seem to have courage, unless it's all stupidity. Why aren't you planning to join Fergan, your rightful king?"
Toby eyed the fingers of red fire caressing the peat. "The brave Black Feathers? Tell me what you're fighting for."
Rory MacDonald considered Toby for a long moment before he answered. "For freedom. To clear our land of the oppressors. For our own ways, for our families, for justice."
Toby adopted what he hoped was an expression of amused cynicism. "Freedom, you say? One lord is much like another. I have no land, I have no family, and I'll believe in justice when I see it. Your fight is not mine, Rory MacDonald of Glencoe." He could add much more — that King Fergan was a rebel only because he had broken the oath of allegiance to King Nevil; that the wars were always started by the Scots and won by the English; that the English paid their troops, which the rebels did not… but he had said more than enough already.
The rebel was scowling. "You support the English?"
"No. Just a neutral."
"There are no neutrals in this war."
"My father was an Englishman."
"From what I was told, you can never know who your father was."
Evidently Meg had been yattering.
Toby turned himself so he had space to lie down — there would not be much room for four. He unfastened his pin and rearranged his damp plaid into a bedroll. Hamish copied him. Meg began fussing with her cloak with the same end in view. Only Rory continued to sit upright, apparently waiting for an answer.
The argument was a waste of breath. Toby was not about to lose his temper and neither of them would ever change the other's mind. "That's true — I am no man's son. So I'm free to make my own decisions, aren't I? I can think what I want, not what my Pa tells me to think. I will never be King Fergan's man, Master Glencoe."
"We'll see about that." The rebel smiled thinly. "Again I tell you: there are no neutrals in this war."
Toby rolled over, facedown, and went to sleep — for the first time…
CHAPTER SIX
It had begun again. He was in darkness — utter, total, impenetrable darkness, as if he had sunk to the bottom of the bog. He was in silence. It always began with darkness and silence.
He could not move. His hands were behind him and his feet apart, as they had been in the dungeon. He could breathe, so he was not in the marsh. He was vertical, but he could feel no floor under his feet or wall at his back, no shackles binding his limbs. He was not conscious of cold or pain, but he was aware he had no clothes on. He floated in nothing, and waited.
The first time, or the first few times, he had assumed that he was dead. He hardly remembered the first times, except through a vague certainty that he had been here before, that this had happened before. There was someone else here also. Someone was hunting for him in the darkness, wandering, searching. At times he could hear her. She was calling to him, calling him by name; the name she was using was not his name, but he knew that he was the one she sought.
Soon the light… Yes, the light was coming now. It began as a very faint milky glow, no more than starlight glimmering on ghostly mist-shapes all around him, with darkness beyond. It grew brighter, but slowly, very slowly, while the filmy haze writhed, grew more definite, then faded again, dancing and twirling in endless variations of shape, glowing in indefinable colors like the lights a man saw when his eyes were closed. His were open. He caught occasional glimpses of a dark and shiny floor, perhaps water, but it was a long way below his feet. He sensed the huntress gliding to and fro. He saw no shadows — how could he, when he himself was the source of the light!
The first few times, he had awakened screaming when he had realized this. Yes, he was asleep, but the vision was real, and dangerous. Demons could take men in their sleep. Sleep was no defense. To waken would be to escape, but he could not force himself awake, and he was in peril.
Wherever he was, wherever this nothing-place might be, he was being hunted in it. She could not find him — indeed, she seemed to be more visible to him than he was to her — but she could make him reveal himself. The light was her doing. He shone in the foggy darkness, and as his glow brightened she drew closer, her voice became clearer.
As the unmeasured time crept past, as his silvery glow brightened, he sensed that other essence — moving, searching
, seeking him, calling him. Not his name, but a name meant to be his, and other words in a tongue he did not know. Yet their meaning grew clearer: Lord? Beloved? Master?
This was worse than before. This was the first time he had made out words. What was that name she was calling?
The danger was becoming more imminent, the huntress questing ever nearer, a pale and sinister presence in the mists. Beloved, why do you hide from me? He wanted to run, to flee to the ends of the world, and he could not as much as blink. He was alive, for his heart was beating. He burned brighter.
Waken, fool, waken!
The hunter, a huntress, Lady Valda, of course… he could see her wandering through the roiling mists, searching. Why could he not awaken, as he had awakened the other times — screaming and sweating, but unharmed? She had never come so close in the earlier dreams… approaching, receding, returning. Blurred in the fog — pale arms outstretched, delicate hands feeling in the mist, dark hair, white body. His heart thundered faster. Each return brought her nearer to where he was and revealed more detail: dark eyes, red lips, the great round nipples, the fascination of the black triangular patch that he tried not to see and could not ignore. There were stories. Young men had dreams, but no dream could equal what he saw now. Oh, the beauty of her!
She had seen her quarry. She peered, frowning, as if barely able to make him out, or dazzled by his brilliance. Her lips moved, her red tongue stroked them. She approached, heading straight for him, not walking, just floating, shining brighter in his radiance.
Waken, waken! The dream had never gone this far before.
He could not swallow, could not move except for the beat of his heart. Dum… Dum… Faster than before. His body was responding to hers. He felt desire as he never had.
There was no wound in her breast. Her breasts were perfect, her body was perfect — her limbs, also. There was not a mark on her anywhere. Her flesh was alabaster, with faint blue veins under the skin. He could see the texture of her nipples, her lashes, the tiny hairs in her eyebrows. He was aware of her perfume, as he had been in the dungeon.