I and Genevieve watch Jarl Hralfar and his army march down the road to Balgr’s Fall from the head of our company. Lucius Swordbreaker’s sword hangs at her waist.
“Come on,” says the commander. “We’d best get a move on.”
I nod and slowly turn from the departing army.
My friends march with me at the front. Our regiment is small; only a hundred in strength, but it’s only as much as will fit in the bottom of a galleon such as Captain Alastair’s. It will be easier to sneak in one hundred soldiers than it would one thousand soldiers anyway. That’s all we will need, if we play our cards correctly.
We march our company directly west, away from the road which leads southwest. The plains are easy to navigate. Angular rocks stick out of the ground in odd directions and the ground begins to roll into hills beneath our feet. There seems to always be the sound of a grasshopper or locust, a constant vibration in the air.
The sky is bright blue, with the occasional wispy cloud lazing across its surface. A slight breeze ruffles my hair and I welcome it gratefully.
The camps are quieter at night. We keep up a heavy guard, as a surprise attack would destroy our drastically reduced numbers, but we needn’t have worried. No attack comes.
Ullrog rarely speaks. He walks glaring at the ground with his brow furrowed and his enormous hands gripping the straps of his pack. Each of our packs is slightly bigger; we each must carry our own provisions, rather than the army horses carrying them for us. There will be no room for horses on the ship.
“What will we do when this is done?” Nathaniel asks me suddenly.
“Probably march west to help Mohonri,” I answer.
“No, not with the battle,” he clarifies. “With the war. When we’ve won and restored Archeantus to the throne.”
I’m taken aback by the question, as I have never thought about it. “I don’t know,” I answer quietly after a moment of thought.
“What do you want to do?”
Once again his question takes me by surprise. “Never thought about it,” I reply.
He thinks for a minute and says, “I think I’d like to be a hunter.”
I look at him curiously. “Why?”
“Because that’s what I like to do,” he answers.
“Would you ever want to settle with a family?”
He shakes his head. “Not my game. Why?” he asks, looking up at me.
I look down. “Nothing,” I reply.
“I think I’d like to live quietly,” Percival says, “in a small town where I can raise a family and… bake bread.”
Aela gives him a funny look and I clarify, “He’s a baker by trade.”
“Anything but swing this accursed thing again,” James contributes, giving his sword a nasty look and jostling the pommel.
Ullrog shakes his head when heads turn to him. That’s his only response and he refuses to give anything more, so Nathaniel turns to Aela and says, “What about you?”
“Don’t know,” she whispers. “If I live, I guess I’ll find out.”
The third day after our company split, the ground becomes soft and wet. Water oozes from beneath my boots as I walk, but the leather keeps my feet dry.
I hear a splash and a yell from my left and see a wide-eyed soldier standing waist-deep in water. If the algae weren’t rippling around him, he would have appeared to have sunk straight into the ground.
“Whoa,” he says quietly.
One of his comrades helps him out and Genevieve declares, “Tread carefully, men. The water is a nasty foe…”
Our group spreads and moves in little lines across the marshes. Our progress is significantly slowed, as we test every footstep before trusting our weight to it.
Tall grasses grow everywhere and algae covers the water, making the pools difficult to find. The larger pools have spots rippling with sunlight, but beneath, the water is dull and muddy.
Every so often we pass a large mound, much like an anthill, but without the entrance at the top. I ignore them and they become a part of the terrain.
“I don’t like this place,” Nathaniel says. “It’s too wet and it feels… wrong. There’s a feeling in the air like…” He sniffs. “…death.”
“I don’t like the smell of it,” Percival agrees. Then to me he says quieter, “This is a part of the world I wouldn’t mind skipping.”
Ullrog seems to be a little jumpy and his eyes dart to the sound of a loud click that emanates from within one of the mounds.
“Probably just a grasshopper,” Nathaniel dismisses.
Ullrog shakes his head but stays silent.
The sky becomes cloudy, like it’s trying feebly to match the marsh’s seeming hostility. Coniferous trees grow in groves, but the miniscule forests are few and far between.
It is difficult to find a patch of dry land large enough for more than one tent, and so those of us with tents are spread out much farther than I would like across the swamp. I am afraid it will rain, so I sleep in a tent. My friends join me.
Again I lay awake for hours, listening. I hear the breath of the sleeping soldiers around me. The grass rustles outside and the canvas of the tent flaps lazily in the breeze. Crickets do their best to sing me to sleep, but to no avail.
There are times when I sincerely wish that I could sleep normally, though I am sure my unnaturally small quota of sleep has helped to save my life or another’s on more than one account.
I wonder how Gunther and Rachel are doing back in Terrace. Gunther must be ecstatic that he will soon be a father, and the subject is odd for me to think about. Quickly I change the course of my thought.
I’m worried about how well our mission will go in Balgr’s Fall. There’s no use hashing over our plans in my head, as I will most likely psych myself to death if I do, so I leave that subject alone as well.
What will I do when this is done? I ask myself. I cannot work out what the details of my life will be, but I know that wherever I am and whatever I am doing, I will still be a blacksmith. The forge is as much ingrained into me as is my name, and I will never leave it.
I listen again. The grass rustles. The wind blows. The tent flaps. But there are no crickets.
My eyes narrow and I sit up. My left hand grasps my hammer while my right takes a throwing knife and I roll forward onto my feet. Slowly I stand.
Those around me sleep serenely. James smacks loudly and takes a deep breath. Ullrog sits up against his pack with his head resting on his shoulder.
Then a loud click.
Ullrog’s eyes snap open and his hand darts to the hilt of his sword. He sees me standing and almost attacks, but holds back and gives me an inquisitive look.
I return an expression that says, “No idea.”
Slowly I move aside the door of the tent and peek outside. I am horrified by what I see.
Six glassy eyes stare back. They are pitch black like the surrounding night, and the dim moonlight glares off of them harshly. The rest of the creature is not lit well enough for me to see. It is obviously aware of me, though it ignores my presence completely, and slithers toward the side of the tent. One of our watchmen approaches along with a sphere of light from his torch, and the creature freezes. When the light is almost upon him, he suddenly disappears.
My eyes narrow and I study the long grass.
“Something wrong, Captain?” asks the watchman.
I shake my head. “No,” I reply softly. “It’s fine. Just… be careful.”
He gives me a concerned look, but continues on his way.
I gaze at the grass for another minute before the creature again reveals himself.
He creeps silently across the ground and around the left side of my tent. I look back at Ullrog and urge him to follow.
The orc and I steal around the tent to follow the creature, but find that it has disappeared. Ullrog looks about warily and says quietly, “Find him.”
We walk with our weapons ready in our hands. Several watchmen patrol our camp, and there is little
cover for the creature to hide behind. But still it remains unseen.
“Captain,” one of them says. I only nod.
A scream sounds from the far corner of the camp. I turn abruptly and watch the bright torch fall to the ground and extinguish in the water, but not before a black shadow slinks across the falling body of the man. Then it is dark.
There are some yells as guards run towards their fallen comrade and I dart to the noise. Ullrog follows, more silently than I thought possible for a man his size.
Light comes over the figure and each of us stops to look at the grotesque scene. We cannot recognize him by his face. His torch hangs sullenly into the shallow water of the marsh.
“What was that?” one of the soldiers whispers.
“I have no idea,” I reply.
There’s a sickening gurgle from behind and a horrible thought crosses my mind.
“It’ll kill us all while we sleep!” I shout. Soldiers start awake at my exclamation and jump up with their weapons in hand. Torchlight brightens the area where we had heard the noise.
The body of a sleeping soldier, who will now never wake, is torn at the neck. Hugging him tightly is the most disgusting creature I have ever seen, but I do not take the time to study it while it defiles one of our fallen comrades.
Many of the soldiers give yells of fright or disgust, but most cry out in rage. The thing screeches loudly and spreads its bat-like wings as they charge, taking flight and wrestling two soldiers to the ground simultaneously. It stabs with the long stinger on its tail and clutches with long pincers, clawing and grabbing with its many spindly limbs.
It leaps from the pile of gore and at the face of another, who frantically chops off two limbs and goes to the ground underneath the weight of the beast. Its wings flap as it takes hold of the soldier and throws him about. All the while it screeches and clicks.
It sees Ullrog’s encroaching blade and moves before the weapon can get too close. My hammer finds him on the other side, however, and his wing crunches underneath my steel. It screams again as Ullrog slices through its other wing, and then I squash its head into the ground.
The thing writhes and thrashes about for a few moments longer, and then lies still.
Everyone stops, breathing hard. Soldiers woken by the commotion join the gathering crowd to see the cause.
Now that it isn’t a threat, I take the time to study it.
Its body is about five or six feet long, segmented like a centipede’s, and very, very thick. Mandibles the size of daggers protrude from its head, and six eyes stare dimly out of its crushed forehead. Another set of pincers comes out below the first, like a lower jaw. Its mouth hangs open slightly and I can see several long needle-like teeth. Two very long arms sit partway down its body, like the arms of a praying mantis, and eight other limbs act as its legs. The wings are large and leathery, which I find odd for an insect, even if the insect is the size of a man.
“Disgusting,” says one of the soldiers.
“What is it?” several of them repeat. “What is it?”
“Khroll’nul,” says Ullrog. Everyone looks to him for the translation. “Dragon Spiders,” he says.
“I say we move forward,” suggests Genevieve. “Can’t risk a horde of them attacking us while we sleep!”
“We can’t navigate the marsh without more light,” I argue. “We’ll just keep a heavy watch. Gather everyone in and keep a fire going. We need to get as much sleep as we can.”
She considers my arguement. Before she can come up with a good rebuttal, I continue, “If they attack us now, why wouldn’t they attack us while we’re on the move? We can hold a better defense if we stay in one place.”
She concedes, which I find surprising, given her stubborn womanly nature. “Fine,” she says. “We stay.”
“Get some sleep,” I call out to the troops. “Stick close together and sleep on your swords. Double the watch. Who knows how many are out there?”
I take another look at the creature as the crowd disperses and a word involuntarily escapes from my lips.
“Nasty.”
The Blackbrine
Hardly any of us sleep the remainder of that night. We may as well have marched out of the marshes but I didn’t want to take the chance. I had concluded, because we had seen none the day before, that they are nocturnal, and we’d be much safer during the day.
For the sake of time, we bury the dead by dropping them in the water. I hate to leave them in such a state, and in such a horrible place at that, but we have no time to do otherwise.
The horizon becomes blue in the distance. Our pace quickens, though the marshes worsen, and soon we come to Gull’s Landing.
Seagulls are everywhere. A titanic flat rock, much like Highrock Lookout, sticks out of the beach and partway into the ocean. Jagged outcrops guard its edges and sides, but a small path leads directly up the back and safely down onto the landing. The shore is rocky and gray, but the ocean water is clear and inviting. Much to my delight, a ship lies docked a little ways from the landing. Two small rowboats rock on the water, tied to one of the many boulders on the shoreline. Captain Alastair steps down from his perch on a rock, where he had been gazing at the sea, and comes forward to meet me.
“He’s a little creepy,” Nathaniel mutters.
“Dragonhammer,” the captain says. “I much prefer this meeting to the one we had only a fortnight ago.”
“As do I,” I reply, shaking his outstretched hand. “I don’t like sneaking around everywhere I go.”
“Yes.” He strokes his clean-shaven chin and says, “This is more men than I thought you would bring.”
“Is that a problem?”
He thinks for a moment and takes a breath. “No,” he says. “We’ll just have to squeeze.”
“Good,” I reply. “I’m not about to turn any of them back.”
“But there is the matter of my payment,” he says. “Do you have it?”
“You shall have it when we are in the city,” I reply.
“Then why should I take you to the port?” he asks with a sarcastically concerned expression on his face.
“Because then you won’t get it at all,” I reply coolly. “And this will have been a waste of your time that you could have spent travelling to a more… wealthy city.”
Alastair grimaces. “Don’t remind me.”
“We have a deal, then?”
“I believe we had a deal when you left me in Amnigaddah,” he replies coldly. “Let’s get this done with.” He signals his men on the rowboats and says to me, “I’ll ferry your men to my ship a few at a time. The shore is too treacherous to get my ship in close enough.”
I watch as the rowboats go to the ship and back, to the ship and back. Then I ride last, with Genevieve and Captain Alastair. As we climb the ladder onto his ship, the captain announces, “Welcome to the Blackbrine.”
“Raise anchor!” he calls as he climbs the steps to the landing on top of the first cabin. Several other nautical terms follow, but I do not understand them. The crew follows whatever orders they are given, the sails billow outward, and we start to make way for Balgr’s Fall.
“There’s room for your soldiers below deck,” Alastair says, “in the cargo hold. It’s not the most comfortable place, but it will suit your purposes.”
“How long should the trip take?” I ask, standing next to him while he ties the wheel into position.
“The wind is with us,” he answers. “It should only take us two days if it keeps up.”
“Good,” I respond. “That keeps us on schedule.”
“Indeed,” he says softly, looking upward at the drifting clouds. “You’ll want to get your soldiers below deck. It’s not likely Ollgorath will have spies looking over the water, but he might… and I’ll need them out of my mens’ way anyway.”
I nod and direct my soldiers to move below deck. One of Alastair’s sailors opens the door to the cabin, and the soldiers tramp down the ensuing stairway into the lower levels. I follo
w them down with Nathaniel, Percival, James, Aela, and Genevieve.
As the boat rocks I almost lose my footing on the stairs. James trips and clings to the railing for his life. “Whoa,” he says softly.
“Well this is cozy,” Percival declares sarcastically, nestling in between two barrels. Ullrog grunts and joins him, dropping his pack on the wooden floor. The boards creak and always the boat rocks.
“It’ll do…” Genevieve says quietly.
Crates and barrels sit everywhere, making the cargo hold extremely cramped. Some soldiers make themselves comfortable on top of the larger barrels or stacks of crates. I notice a pile of what appears to be fishing equipment, but the hooks are huge and placed on shafts like harpoons. A mess of ropes and nets lies underneath them.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” James says, clutching his stomach and collapsing onto a crate, his back resting on his pack.
“Please don’t do it down here,” Nathaniel pleads.
“Agreed,” I add.
He moans.
“Top deck,” I urge. “Just make sure to get it over the side.” He nods and makes to go up, but I stop him, “Take off your armor. We shouldn’t need it, and if any spies see it you’ll give us all away.”
He nods and shakily removes his armor, as all of the soldiers are doing. I join them and breathe a sigh of relief when my sweat-soaked shirt contacts the humid air, though it provides little reprieve. “I want some fresh air,” I explain to the others. “It’s too dark and stuffy in here.”
Aela follows James and me up. I walk behind James; about every two steps he threatens to topple in a random direction, and I’d rather I was there to catch him. Even so, he manages to get up the stairs by clinging to the rail desperately. Once on top in the fresh air, he immediately makes for the side. Afraid he is going to plunge into the sea, I escort him there and he leans heavily on the short wooden rail.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods, his face devoid of color, and his eyes roll a little; he says nothing. “Alright,” I say, patting his shoulder. “You need anything, let me know.”
“Okay,” he pants weakly, sweat lining his forehead. As I walk away I hear him retch. I stop and look back, but he waves for me to continue.
Dragonhammer: Volume II Page 17