Moving blindly in the dark, his heart hammering from fright, Seth shrugged off his blanket and struggled to his feet. The Sister of Sial was but a black silhouette before him. Seth let Nevis take his hand and lead him away from the campsite. She must have had sight like a cat, for he could see nothing. Seth held his breath as they crept away, focusing his thoughts on escape.
They padded away from the campsite, down the bank and into the riverbed. The rocky terrain, riddled with rabbit holes and tree roots, slowed their progress. Seth stumbled and slid in the darkness, although Nevis appeared to be much more surefooted than he was.
“Quietly!” she whispered. “I have two horses tethered nearby. We must hurry if we are to reach them before your friends awake.”
Seth needed no further encouragement. This chance for escape was his first blessing in days. He did not intend to waste it.
A short while later, they clambered from the creek bed and climbed a low rise. Ahead, the horses waited, their dark forms outlined against the night sky. Nevis spoke gently to the nervous beasts as she untied them. She handed Seth the reins to his horse and mounted hers.
“We ride west,” her voice was terse with purpose, “towards the Rock and Pillars.”
Once more, Seth gave no argument. He swung up onto his horse’s back and fumbled for the stirrups. The Esquill blocked the way east, so that direction was not an option. Still, Seth would have preferred a different route to the Rock and Pillars. There would be few places for them to hide in that arid mountain range.
Seth urged his horse into a brisk trot and followed Nevis through a sparse copse of stunted trees towards the road. For the moment, they dared not ride any faster, due to the rough ground. A still night watched silently over Seth and Nevis as they rode. The moon provided the only source of light and the quiet magnified the crunch of the horses’ hooves over dry twigs and grass. To Seth, his breathing seemed to echo in the silence. At any moment, he expected to hear shouts and the sounds of pursuit. He held his breath but none came.
They reached the Miners’ Highway and urged their horses into a gallop – leaving the Esquill far behind.
Chapter Eleven
Lost in the Tallow Marshes
Eni squeezed his eyes shut and felt the air whistle past him. He bent his knees, praying that Palâd would embrace him gently, and hit the swamp with a slap. Cold water embraced him. Eni floundered before his feet sank into the muddy bottom. Darin landed beside him, showering Eni with mud and slime.
Waist deep and wiping the marsh sludge from their eyes, Eni and Darin waded away from Swamphaven. At their backs, they heard splashes as the soldiers followed them over the perimeter fence. Their pursuers were incensed, and their curses rang across the marsh.
The two men exchanged no words as they fled. They were both out of breath and struggling to move through the swamp. They eventually reached a patch of firmer ground, but even here it was slow going. The ground was soft and clumps of reeds loomed out of the darkness like icebergs in a cold winter sea, tripping them at every turn.
A whistling sound filled the air. Eni felt arrows peppering the dawn around him like angry hornets. For the first time since the chase had begun, Eni felt fear seize him. Darkness no longer cloaked them and the mist was starting to clear. At this rate, one of the arrows would find its mark.
Darin cried out and fell to his knees. He was a couple of paces behind Eni but upon hearing him go down amongst the reeds, Eni stopped and struggled back to him. The light of the approaching dawn made Darin easy to spot. He sank to the ground with an arrow sticking out of his back. It had gone in just below the ribs. Darin's face was knotted with pain, but his features contorted when he saw Eni had come back for him.
“What are you doing? If they catch us both I'll kill you myself!”
“Don’t talk madness. I can’t leave you here!”
Darin shrugged off his pack and hurled it at Eni.
“Yes you can – run!”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Eni crawled forward to help Darin, but when he reached towards him, the southerner pulled out his hunting knife.
“I’m not going to say it again.”
Darin’s eyes were wild as he brandished the dagger.
“I really will slit your throat if you let them catch you. Run!”
This time, Eni did as he was told. He shouldered the pack and, crouching as low as he could, fled across the marshes.
***
Eni tripped over a submerged root and fell face-down in stagnant, cold water. Shaking himself off, and cursing the swamps to Moden, he struggled to his feet and stumbled onwards. A dead tree, from whence the offending root had come, protruded like a blackened thumb from the water to his left. To Eni’s right, two swamp palms stood upon a mossy bank, their feathery heads bent under the weight of the sky.
A few steps further and Eni reached the far side of the pool. It had seemed like a good idea at the time – to wade across one of the marshes’ many ponds, rather than cut a path through the tangle of vegetation either-side – but Eni now regretted his decision. His wet clothes chaffed his skin and dragged at his already aching limbs.
Eni grabbed hold of a clump of tussock and pulled himself onto the bank. Wet boots squelching over spongy ground, he picked his way between thorny bushes, emerging into a lumpy, boggy sea of grasses.
Before him, flat and endless, the Tallow Marshes spread out towards the western horizon. Far off, he could see the faint outline of the Starwalden Alps but they still appeared leagues away.
The morning’s mist had now cleared. Eni and the handful of ragged men who still pursued him, crawled like insects trapped between a colourless sky and a dull brown landscape.
Eni’s breath caught in his throat as he pushed himself onwards, across the grasses, tripping and stumbling in his haste to widen the gap between himself and his hunters. His vision was starting to blur from exhaustion.
How long had he been running since Darin had fallen, and how far?
Initially, the receding mist had still aided his flight, and once their arrows had been spent, Valense’s men had been forced to throw aside their longbows and give chase.
During his escape west, the Tallow Marshes obstructed Eni constantly. Just when he thought he had found a path of firmer ground, tangles of spiky, sticky undergrowth would impede him, or the ground would turn into sucking mud beneath his feet.
The emptiness of the Tallow Marshes was all-consuming. Near to Swamphaven there had been signs of human inhabitation: marsh cages, dykes, rotting wooden platforms and terraces where men had attempted to grow food amongst the wetlands; but as Eni travelled west those signs vanished and he now journeyed through an empty landscape, devoid of man’s touch.
Trembling from fatigue, Eni stopped a moment to catch his breath. Immediately, he was set upon by a cloud of biting midges.
“Bastards!” Eni grunted, swatting the insects away. Then, he chanced a glance over his shoulder.
His pursuers were still there, angry, struggling silhouettes to the east. They were gaining on him.
Eni staggered onwards. He was so bone-weary that he felt on the verge of surrender. Then he thought of Darin. The memory of the southerner’s angry, stricken face and the arrow in his side, forced Eni onwards.
Eni was almost reduced to crawling – tears of exhaustion now trickling down his cheeks – when he saw his chance of escape appear in the distance. Ahead, erupting out of the lumpy grasses like great marsh sentinels, lay a spreading bed of giant flaxes. Tall seed pods stood out against the pale sky; black spears rising from the midst of an explosion of red and gold leaves.
Not risking another glance over his shoulder, for he could now hear his pursuers’ ragged breathing and the splash and rustle of their path over the grasses, Eni dredged up one more burst of speed and dove into the heart of the flax bed. His breathing roared in his ears. He clawed and elbowed his way through the giants, angling to the right in an attempt to confuse the soldiers. When he h
eard the whacking sound of his pursuers beating their own way into the flax bed, Eni ceased his flight and wriggled his way into the centre of one of the flaxes. It swallowed him whole like a hulking carnivorous beast.
In his hiding place, his face pressed up against the cool, tough flax leaves, Eni squeezed his eyes shut and focused on quietening and slowing his ragged breathing. They were close now, fanning out across the flax bed and attempting to draw a net around him. All it would take was just one of them to dig a few feet into this flax, and Eni’s hiding place would be discovered.
A hand exploded into the heart of the flax. Blunt fingered and pale, the hand groped around. Eni shrank against the wall of flax behind him. The hand swiped at his face and he craned his neck back to avoid it. A moment more and it would have found him – but the hand’s departure was as sudden as its arrival. The man it belonged to cursed and yanked his hand free. Eni heard the crunch of the soldier’s boots as he moved on to the next flax.
Eni listened to Valense’s men crashing about, and to their shouts and curses when they failed to find him. Slowly, his body relaxed.
Long after their voices faded, and the sound of his pursuers continuing their search west was replaced by the whispers of the marshland, Eni remained hidden. Not only was he reluctant to leave his hiding place, lest the soldiers lay in wait on the other-side of the flaxes, but his body and spirit were both spent. Had the flax not been propping him upright he would have collapsed. Eni dozed a while. When he finally regained his senses, he felt as if he had been trapped in his flax cocoon for hours. Eni craned his neck upwards to see that the ribbon of sky above his head was growing dark.
He wriggled his way out of the flax, emerging on the northern edge of the bed. The sun was setting in a golden haze to the west, amidst a chorus of croaking frogs. Eni sat down, his back pressed up against the wall of flax, and decided that he was done for the day. It appeared he had lost his pursuers for the moment and it would be perilous to travel through the marshes in darkness. He would rest here until dawn.
Numb and shivering, Eni opened Darin’s pack and pulled out one of the cheese plaits that Darin had bought in Swamphaven. The sight of the bread was a painful reminder of the man who had saved his life, not once but twice. Eni was not, by nature, an emotional man and he did not befriend others easily. Yet, he had never met anyone as brave as Darin Mel.
Slowly, as even the slightest movement pained his exhausted body, Eni chewed his way through the cheese plait and finished the slices of duck Darin had packed away. Then he took two measured gulps of water from the bladder. He was still thirsty but forced himself to stopper the bladder and tuck it back inside the pack – with two more days of travel through the Tallow Marshes he would soon run out.
Eni brushed off the crumbs from his simple dinner and sat under the shadow of the giant flaxes, weary and alone, watching light fade from the world.
Chapter Twelve
Sentorân
Val gazed out across the sea of red tussock. It was so desolate out here. He urged his horse onwards and followed Tobin and Lady Cirinna north-west. He pitied the shepherds who tended flocks of sheep in Farindell’s extremities – what a harsh life.
After leaving the inn the morning before, the companions had ridden over endless hills carpeted with tufts of red tussock. By the time the light faded, brooding storm clouds had boiled in from the east. The travellers had spent the night in an abandoned shepherd’s hut. They had locked it up tight and crouched under the leaking roof while the storm exploded overhead. It had been a long night and none of the party had slept well. All three of them were damp and bad-tempered this morning.
Before them, the High Dragon Spines inched ever closer. The great mountains reared up from the tussock-covered foothills, jagged and unwelcoming. Val had heard of the road that spanned the mountain – there were few who had not. The way, badly maintained and rarely used had many a tale attached to it. However, Val was more concerned with the fact the road was notoriously unstable; one false step and he and his horse could end up sliding down the mountainside to their deaths.
As the day wore on, the hills rose towards the foot of the mountain. The tussock gave way to withered grass, and then to loose shale. A rough road wound up the mountainside, criss-crossing its way up into a curtain of cloud that obscured the peaks of the Dragon Spines.
The party had travelled in silence for most of the day, but mid-afternoon Lady Cirinna shattered it. She pointed up at the sky to the west.
“Look! What is that?”
Val’s gaze swept upwards and focused on a great black bird that glided on the thermals, far above them.
“Moden...,” he whispered. Even at this distance he could see that the bird was enormous. Its wingspan must have been at least twenty feet.
Captain Tobin’s face hardened as he too craned his neck and gazed upwards.
“I’d wager that’s a harlet,” he declared.
Lady Cirinna twisted in the saddle and stared at Tobin.
“Surely they don’t exist?”
“They do,” Tobin sneered back, “and you’d better hope this one has not spotted us.”
Val’s stomach clenched. Tense moments passed. The travellers brought their horses to a halt and gazed upwards at the dark silhouette. High above, the harlet circled in a wide arc, before heading north towards Central Omagen.
Val let out the breath he had been holding and exchanged a glance with Lady Cirinna.
Ignoring them both, Captain Tobin urged his stallion onwards. Wordlessly, still shaken from their close encounter, his charges followed.
Dusk was settling when the party reached a small stone cottage by the roadside. The dwelling was a solitary landmark in a bleak, windswept land. No lights burned from its windows and no smoke rose from the cottage's chimney. As they drew closer, Val could see it was empty. He guessed it had once been a toll-keeper's cottage; from the days when Farindell's realmlord had an interest in keeping the road over the mountains in good condition. There were signs of a long withered garden at the back of the cottage and the remnants of a wooden fence that had once encircled the dwelling. Pink and blue forget-me-nots carpeted the parched ground about the cottage. As expected, Tobin drew his stallion to a halt in front of the dwelling.
“We stay here tonight,” he announced. “Help me make it safe.”
Val and Lady Cirinna did as he bid them. None of them spoke of the caped attacker from the Red Tussock, but Tobin had been on edge ever since the encounter. Val, for one, was relieved at his insistence that they make their night’s accommodation as secure as possible. They led their horses inside and filled the nosebags with oats. Despite being abandoned for many years, the cottage was still sound. Thieves had stripped the interior of any comforts – they had even lifted the flagstone floor. The sight of a large fireplace filled Val with relief. At least they would not freeze this night.
Val and Lady Cirinna scoured the slopes of the mountain for firewood; not an easy task as very little grew in these parts. They returned to the cottage with armfuls of sticks retrieved from briar rose, and stunted broom and gorse bushes. Tobin appeared unimpressed with their find and sent them back out again into the twilight to gather some more.
“Bring back branches as well,” he instructed from where he fixed planks across the window. Fortunately, the remains of the shutters and doors still lay about the house, although much of it had rotted.
Knowing better than to argue, Val and Lady Cirinna went back outside and began another search for firewood. Night fell swiftly in the mountains, and the last rays of light were slipping beyond the line of the High Dragon Spires when the pair hurried back to the cottage carrying armloads of wood. Captain Tobin waiting for them in the doorway, his face thunderous.
“You took your time,” he barked. “Is that all you managed to collect?”
“Virtually nothing grows here,” Val snapped as he passed the captain. “Perhaps you should have gone foraging.”
“Falkyn,” the capta
in growled, “watch that forked tongue of yours.”
Val ignored Lady Cirinna’s smirk and dumped his sticks next to the fire place, before leaning the two branches he had found against the wall. In his opinion, they had managed to collect enough wood to last the night if they were careful.
Ignoring his companions, Tobin lit the fire and busied himself in wrapping oil-soaked cloth around the tips of the two branches. When finished, he lent the torches back against the wall. Val watched the captain’s industry, incredulous. He had brought the branches inside for firewood to keep them warm, not for torches.
There was nothing companionable about this night. The three of them sat down in a semi-circle around the fire. Tobin handed out pieces of bread so hard it cut their mouths, together with pieces of waxy cheese and tangy little onions. They ate in silence. Beyond the fire's glow the rest of the cottage lay in darkness, boarded up as best as Tobin could manage. After their meal, Lady Cirinna curled her slender form, cat-like, as close as she dared to the fire and eventually fell asleep. Nearby, the captain dozed, one hand on his sword while Val sat, wide-awake, staring into the fire and listening to the night.
It was quiet up here on the lower slopes of the High Dragon Spines; a windless, empty night. The world sank into a deep silence and the only sound Val heard for a long while was his own breathing – and that of his companions – the crackling of the fire and the beating of his heart. The night stretched on, beyond the darkest hour, and then Val heard it.
Footfalls of a long stride circling the cottage, looking for a way in.
Val held his breath.
The footsteps sounded barefoot, rather than the thumping of booted feet, and were accompanied by raspy breathing. Beside him, Val felt the captain stir. Val had thought Tobin had been asleep, but the speed with which the captain stood up made Val realise that he too had lain awake, listening to the night.
Journey of Shadows (The Palâdnith Chronicles Book 1) Page 14