by Troy Denning
A loud splash sounded from the rear of the wagon, then Yago said, “Ch-chilly!”
The ogre stooped down and began to bathe his wounded shoulder in the cold water, moving his arm back and forth to work the stiffness out.
“What about Yago?” Atreus kept his voice low. “He’s too big for a yak.”
“He will find plenty to eat in the swamp. That will keep him warm.” Rishi motioned for the rucksack. “The only other choice is to confront our pursuers, and then there will certainly be much killing, which I know the good sir finds so distasteful.”
Seeing that the Mar was right, Atreus hoisted the rucksack onto a yak’s back. Rishi slipped a rope through the shoulder straps and pulled it toward the beast’s withers, then frowned and hefted its weight.
“My goodness, this is light,” Rishi remarked. “What does it contain?”
“Our bedrolls and extra cloaks, the last of our food, the cooking pot and waterskins—”
“And what of your treasure coffer?” Rishi broke in.
“My treasure coffer? Even if we had a way to carry it, we don’t have time—”
“If you don’t bring the coffer, how can you pay me?” demanded Rishi. “You have your own reasons for seeking Langdarma. I am doing it for the gold.”
“But Naraka’s patrol is—”
“Had the good sir listened to his guide and killed Naraka, the patrol would undoubtedly have turned back by now,” Rishi said as he stepped away from the yak. He stood with arms folded, leaving the rucksack to hang half secured. “You may spare your enemies if you wish, but your kindness will not cost me my fortune.”
Atreus sighed and glanced through the willows back toward the road. When he saw no sign of Naraka’s patrol, he nodded reluctantly. “If we can carry it,” he said. “Yago’s in no condition—”
“Yaks can carry anything,” Rishi said, resuming his work. “You will see.”
Atreus laid his sword on the rucksack, securing it in place beneath the cinch rope, then waded over to the front of the wagon. His numb feet were little more than frozen weights, and they slipped twice as he pulled himself onto the driver’s footboard. He kneeled on the bench and leaned into the back, reaching for his treasure basket.
The sound of approaching hooves began to drum down the road. Atreus peered out through the back of the cargo bed, looking through the long tunnel of smashed willows the wagon had left in its wake. The leaves were too thick to see up onto the road, but he had little doubt about whom he was hearing. He threw open the treasure basket, then groaned as he hefted the heavy coffer out.
“Here,” said Yago. “I’ll take that.”
Atreus turned to find his friend standing beside the driver’s bench, both arms extended to take the coffer. Though the ogre’s face betrayed no hint of his pain, he could not quite lift his wounded arm high enough to accept the box.
Atreus shook his head. “You rest your arm,” he said. “We might need it later.”
The sound of the drumming hooves grew louder. Rishi came over with the yaks and gently shouldered Yago aside. The Mar was sitting sidesaddle on the lead mount, holding a willow switch in one hand and the second beast’s tether in the other.
“Perhaps you will hold the coffer until we have time to secure it,” said Rishi. “It should not be long. Most likely, our pursuers will not even notice where we left the road.”
Up on the road, Naraka chattered several commands in Maran, and the galloping hooves suddenly slowed.
“They noticed,” Yago growled.
“It means nothing.” Rishi waved Atreus toward the yak. “If you will be so kind as to mount, they cannot follow us into the swamp.”
Atreus threw a leg over the yak and settled down behind its humped shoulders. He saw at once why Rishi had chosen to sit sidesaddle. Straddling the creature’s broad back was incredibly uncomfortable, but with both hands holding the coffer, the only way to keep his balance was to squeeze the beast between his knees.
The rattle of falling stones sounded from the road bank. A single pony whinnied as it stepped into the icy water.
Rishi tapped his yak on the neck. The beast turned away from the wagon and started into the swamp, drawing Atreus’s mount along. The creatures had an awkward, rolling gait, and Atreus found himself instantly in danger of falling off. He braced the heavy coffer on the yak’s hump and pressed his heels into its belly and tried not to think of the icy water below. Yago followed along close behind, his splashing feet masking the softer babble of the yaks’ hooves. If the ogre found the frigid water more than merely uncomfortable, he betrayed no sign.
A few moments later, Naraka’s scout gave the alarm cry. The patrol leader started barking orders, and the rest of his men clattered down into the willows, their ponies whinnying at the freezing water.
“They will certainly turn back soon,” Rishi whispered. “These Edenvale Mar have no determination.”
Rishi steered the yaks down a meandering labyrinth of narrow tunnel-like passages, always working to keep a screen of thickets between them and their pursuers. They passed a snow-covered hummock, and the yaks stopped and started to nose for grass. Rishi cursed the lead animal softly and slapped its neck. The reluctant beast finally turned away and continued forward.
Naraka’s patrol stayed close behind, splashing through the swamp in a long, evenly spaced line. Rishi kept looking back over his shoulder and scowling, then turning to Atreus to reassure him that their pursuers would soon give up. Instead, the ponies drew ever nearer, whinnying and snorting with every step. Atreus could well understand their displeasure. He could not keep his own feet from dragging in the frigid swamp, and they had become little more than frozen weights. Only Yago, with his thick layer of ogre fat, seemed as unaffected by the cold as the shaggy yaks.
After a time, the sky started to gray with oncoming dusk. A chill breeze rose from the east and wafted across the swamp. Atreus and Rishi fell to shivering, and even Yago commented once or twice on the cold. Behind them, the ponies grew quiet, save for an occasional splash when one stumbled and spilled its rider into the water.
At last, Naraka began to shout orders in Maran, his voice echoing through the swamp first in one direction, then the other. Rishi sighed in relief, as he guided the yaks into the heart of the willow thicket and stopped.
“Naraka is calling his men to him,” the Mar explained. “They will certainly turn back now.”
As the ponies splashed toward Naraka’s voice, Atreus allowed himself the luxury of lifting his sodden boots out of the water. Though his feet felt as heavy and dead as stones, his lower legs were throbbing stumps of cold pain. His thighs ached from squeezing his mount, and the effort of balancing the heavy coffer had numbed his shoulders with fatigue. He could not imagine passing the night in this cold swamp, and yet he did not see how they could spend it anywhere else.
The splashing slowly faded as the last of Naraka’s men rejoined the patrol, and the swamp fell ominously silent. After a few moments, the sound of murmuring voices began to filter through the willows, occasionally punctuated by the soft crackle of snapping sticks.
“The fiend,” Rishi hissed. “Does he care nothing for his men and his ponies?”
“What’s he doing?” Yago asked.
“Preparing a camp.” Rishi shook his head sadly, then cast an accusatory glance in Atreus’s direction. “How unfortunate the good sir did not kill him when he had the chance. His mercy will cost us many hours of cold misery and perhaps a few toes as well.”
Rishi urged the yaks onto a small hummock in the heart of the thicket. The hungry beasts immediately pawed through the snow and began to tear at the mossy grass beneath. The Mar slid off his mount, freeing the rucksack with a single tug on the rope.
“Hurry. We must make camp before dark.” Rishi turned to Yago. “The marsh is full of good things to eat. If you go down by the water, I am sure you will catch something.”
“Eels?” Yago licked his lips. Whole raw eels were an ogre delicacy, se
cond only to bear brains. “I could swallow a dozen of them at once!”
“Fish,” Rishi said. “I fear the water is too cold for eels.”
The ogre’s face fell, but he went to kneel at the water’s edge. Atreus dropped his treasure coffer into the snow, then swung an aching leg over the yak’s shoulders and slid to the ground. The impact sent waves of agony shooting up his cold legs, but he felt no sensation at all in his feet.
“There is no need for concern,” Rishi said, eyeing Atreus’s clumsy limp. “The feeling will come back when you start to move.”
Rishi passed him an extra cloak from the rucksack and set to work stomping down a place to sleep. Atreus took the sword and began to cut willows for insulation. As promised, the feeling soon returned to Atreus’s feet, and he wished it had not. The flesh felt as if it were on fire, and the bones underneath ached with the cold. He hacked all the harder.
The light was just starting to fade when a sporadic series of screeches and agonized whinnies echoed across the swamp. Hardly able to believe the awful sound was being made by ponies, Atreus stopped work and looked up. In the twilight sky, he could barely make out three distant columns of smoke.
“In the name of Sune,” Atreus gasped. “What’s Naraka doing? Burning his ponies alive?”
“That is no doubt what the poor beasts fear, but we are not to be so lucky,” said Rishi. “The ponies must be warmed and dried before the night turns cold, or ice will form on their legs and perhaps cripple them before morning.”
Atreus glanced at the grazing yaks, who seemed quite content with the snowy ice balls hanging from their shaggy legs.
“Oh no, do not worry about the yaks,” laughed Rishi. “For them, cold is better. If not for us, they could keep going all night.”
This turned Atreus’s thoughts to his own soggy feet. He cleared a place for a fire and gathered several handfuls of brown grass from under the hummock’s heavy thatch. Rishi looked increasingly distressed as Atreus began to stack dead willow stalks next to the fire pit When he withdrew his flint and steel from the rucksack, the Mar could contain his alarm no longer.
“Excuse me, but surely the good sir is not thinking of making a fire.”
“He is doing more than thinking of it,” Atreus replied. “His feet are wet and cold, and he wants to be able walk when he gets out of this swamp.”
Rishi paled. “Perhaps the good sir is unaccustomed to the trials of being a fugitive. Even if the patrol cannot see the fire’s light, we are upwind. They will smell the smoke and follow it to us.”
Atreus turned toward the frigid channel, where Yago was kneeling on the shore with his arm thrust into the swamp up to the elbow. “Through that water? Impossible!”
Rishi calmly removed his boots and trousers, stepped past Yago, and waded out into the icy swamp. He turned to face Atreus. “How l-long would you like me to stay?”
Yago raised his brow at the Mar’s strange behavior, then gasped and looked back into the water. There was a brief splash, and he flipped an odd two-foot fish up onto the hummock. With a bulldog jaw and a long round body striped with brown and yellow scales, the thing looked like a hybrid of catfish and grayling. As soon as it hit the snow, it began to flop about, working its way back toward the water.
Yago lunged up the hill to pin down his catch, and Atreus turned back to Rishi.
“All right, no fire.” He waved the Mar out of the water. “But I thought you said Edenvale Mar had no determination?”
“I do not think Naraka is from Edenvale.” Rishi climbed ashore and began drying his legs with grass. “But he will certainly turn back in the morning. He is only hoping we will be foolish enough to make a fire tonight and lead him to us.”
Yago looked at his catch. “No fire?”
Atreus put the flint and steel away. “Afraid not.”
“Great,” the ogre grumbled. “As if eatin’ fish wasn’t bad enough.”
He killed the swamp fish with a bite to the back of the neck, then began to devour it, scales and all. Atreus and Rishi made do with a dinner of raw barley in warm yak milk, and the sun vanished, plunging the camp into chilling darkness. Rishi brought the yaks over to the bed he had prepared, forcing them to lie down about three feet apart, with their backs toward each other and their heads at opposite ends. He tethered them in place by tying each beast’s lead to the tail of the other one.
Atreus removed his boots and put on a dry pair of socks. He and Rishi wrapped themselves in their extra cloaks and settled down between the yaks, each clutching the other one’s feet to his chest. Yago laid down on the outside of the makeshift shelter, curling up beside one of the shaggy beasts.
They did not really sleep. The temperature plunged, and they spent most of the night shivering. Atreus’s feet ached terribly, and Rishi assured him this was a good sign. When his toes started to sting a few hours later, the Mar said this was even better. Yago fidgeted relentlessly, rocking his yak back and forth, and at one point cursed the beast for not being still. At first, Atreus watched the constellations, trying to mark the time by their progress. Later, he tried to avoid looking at them. The minutes were passing like hours, and what movement he did notice only made him think of the dropping temperature.
After what felt like a hundred frozen hours, Rishi suddenly sat up and pulled on his boots, declaring the time had come to rise. While the Mar untethered and milked the yaks, Yago went down to the channel and punched through the ice crust that had formed during the night, returning with two more big swamp fish. Confident they would be gone before Naraka’s men could find their campsite, they started a fire and gorged themselves on a warm meal.
The hot food rejuvenated Atreus. He soon found himself optimistic enough to remove his tattered map from inside his tunic and examine it in the firelight. Gyatse was the first valley on the chart, and from what he had heard the people there would welcome a few gold coins. Perhaps that would be a good place to replenish their supplies. Of course, Rishi would have to do the buying. One look at Atreus’s face and the Mar would flee for their lives.
Yago peered over Atreus’s shoulder, squinting at the meaningless squiggles. “That thing say how far is it to Rishi’s secret caravan road?”
“If it did, the road would not be much of a secret,” said Rishi.
Yago frowned, then reached down to tap the map with a big greasy finger. “But this is a map. It tells us how to find stuff.”
“Not Rishi’s road.” Atreus did not attempt to explain further. He had tried a dozen times to help Yago understand the mystery of map reading, but the ogre still found the lines and symbols impossible to decipher. Consequently, the ogre regarded maps as some sort of divining magic. “We’ll just have to be patient.”
Atreus folded the map and returned it to his tunic, then helped Rishi load the yaks while Yago cleaned and rebandaged his wound. They transferred half the gold to the rucksack so Rishi could lash a balanced load onto shoulders of the lead yak, and by the time they finished, the gray glow of first light was showing in the eastern sky. Naturally, Rishi insisted on riding with the treasure, but Atreus did not worry about being abandoned. Half the gold remained safely locked in its inviolable coffer, and he knew the Mar would never settle for half when he could have all.
The yaks plunged into the swamp without hesitation, their hooves crashing through the thick ice and leaving an easy path to follow. Atreus hardly cared. Without the coffer, he could sit sidesaddle on his yak and hold his feet out of the water, and that alone was a good start to the day.
The sky had just brightened to the color of blue steel when Naraka’s patrol began to splash up from behind. They were moving fast and in a large group, eager to catch up before the sun melted the ice away.
“I guess Naraka didn’t turn back after all,” Atreus noted.
“Naraka is a terrible bully who is driving his men beyond all endurance,” Rishi said. “The good sir may rest assured that they will certainly rebel against—”
“I don’t think
we’d better count on that,” Atreus interrupted. “And we can’t outrun their ponies, not when we’re so easy to track.”
Rishi glanced toward the eastern horizon, where the sun had not yet risen high enough to show itself over the tall willows. “The sun will melt this ice very soon, and then—”
“I need no hollow assurances, Rishi. We all know they’ll catch up long before this ice melts,” Atreus said as he urged his mount up beside the Mar’s. “Do you have any of your throwing daggers left?”
Rishi lifted his brow. “Has the master decided it is necessary to kill our pursuers?”
Atreus shook his head. “No, but the time has come to chase them off. How many daggers do you have?”
“Enough.” Rishi opened his cloak, revealing two long lines of small silver hilts.
Atreus turned to Yago. “How does your shoulder feel?”
The ogre reached over and used his injured arm to pluck a willow bush out by its roots. “A little stiff, but ready enough to swing a club.”
Atreus grinned and said, “Follow me.”
He urged his yak ahead of Rishi’s and led the way through the winding channels, all the time listening to the splashing of Naraka’s ponies grow louder. After a time, the channel curled around the head of a small, willow-screened hummock. Atreus and Rishi tethered their yaks on the far side, then the three companions sneaked back across the little island and crouched behind the willows on the other side. In front of them lay the passage through which they had just ridden, their path clearly marked by the channel of broken ice.
The patrol was so close that Atreus could hear murmuring voices and snorting ponies, but it seemed to take forever to arrive. He felt himself growing numb in the cold air and began to squeeze the hilt of his stolen sword, trying to keep his arm from growing stiff. Finally, Naraka came trotting into sight, his eyes fixed on the channel of broken ice. As soon as he saw the hairpin curve ahead, the captain slowed and began to scan the willows along the banks.