He held out his shirt. “Drape this over the bow to dry,” he said.
Numbly, she took his wet garment and spread it out across the wood rail beside Fardale. The wolf sniffed at Er’ril’s shirt. She was glad to find something to divert her attention.
The sharp noise of a slap, though, brought her gaze around once again. “Cursed bugs!” Er’ril slapped his palm again at his bare chest. Two spots of blood marked where he had squashed a pair of biting insects.
“Light one of the glowpots,” Jaston said. “Or soon we’ll be swamped with blood feeders. The heaviest swarms lurk just outside Drywater’s pall of glowpot smoke.”
Mycelle used a taper to snatch a flame from one of the lanterns, then lit the wick of a ceramic pot filled with perfumed wax. A curl of pungent smoke arose. Its scent reminded Elena of boiling razorleaf, used to soothe aches. She felt a sting on her neck and struck at it. Her fingers came back with a drop of blood. Another unseen insect bit her arm. Soon the boat erupted with sharp gasps and the sound of palms striking flesh. Even Fardale whined and pawed at his nose.
Only Jaston seemed unaffected as he poled them deeper into the swamps. “I’ve been living so long in Drywater that the smoke of its thousand glowpots has not only sunk into my skin but also into my blood,” he explained. “The feeders don’t much care to take a meal from a swamper, not when they have fresh targets.” Elena thought she detected a hint of amusement in the man’s eyes.
Grimacing, she swatted at another bite. She could not imagine traveling the entire swamp like this. Soon, though, the glowpot’s smoke grew into a thin cloud about them, driving away all but the most determined insects.
Jaston continued to pole slowly through the green waters. “There’s also a salve made from the herb that’s in the glowpots,” he said. “It’s not as effective but it’ll help. Once we reach one of the swifter currents, you’ll need it, since we’ll be moving quicker than the smoke can keep up with us.”
Elena settled back to her seat, relieved that the plague of stinging bites had abated for now. She studied the swamp around her. Drywater had vanished behind a curtain of moss and cypress branches that brushed the oily waters. Again the mists had lowered with the sun’s arrival. The light became a hazy, yellow-tinged glare off the water that soon made her eyes ache. Nearby, branches reached for their boat, but Jaston was a skilled poleman and kept them from the lowest of the overhanging limbs, where nests of coiled snakes hung like Winterfest decorations, bright yellows and vibrant reds, writhing slowly as the punt passed. Occasionally she would spot one of these fancifully colored snakes swimming in sluggish whips of its tail through the dark waters.
Jaston saw her attention on one of them. “Sweetheart adders,” he named them. “Their bite hurts like a flaming brand on the skin but will only make you sick for a day or two.”
“So why call them sweetheart then?”
“Because their bite doesn’t kill you. Among the denizens of the swamp, their bite is nothing more than a kiss.”
Elena settled deeper into the center of the punt. Mycelle put one arm around her. “Don’t fret, Elena. The snakes are nothing to fear. As long as you don’t disturb them, they’ll leave you be.”
“But there are other creatures that aren’t so generous,” Jaston added. “So, once we’re deeper in the swamps, keep your eyes and ears alert.”
As they poled around a slow curve in the channel, a sweet scent flowered the air. It drove back the smell of rotten eggs from their noses. Elena was startled at how accustomed she had become to the constant stink. The scents of daffodils and lilacs were a balm on her spirit, a reminder of home among these treacherous lands.
Jaston’s voice grew grim. “Keep your heads down.”
Mycelle glanced over her shoulder to him. “Is it a moonblossom?”
“Yes, and from the stink, I’d say it’s a large one.”
Mycelle hunkered down lower in the punt and pulled Elena off the bench seat to sit on the bottom of the boat. “Stay there, honey.”
Fardale joined her, on guard.
“Strange to find it still hunting this late in the morning,” Jaston mumbled.
They glided slowly around the bend. Ahead, the source of the sweet scent appeared: a monstrous purple blossom the size of a small calf overhung the channel. Its huge petals were curled back invitingly from its center. The boat would pass under those petals, but Jaston poled the punt as far away as possible. As they drew closer, Elena saw the reason for his concern. The stem of this huge flower, as thick around as her thigh and wrapped like a creeper around the branches of a huge cypress, was festooned with hundreds of thorny vines. Yet it was not the long, barbed spikes that drew her eyes, but the poor creatures that hung impaled in their grips. Wrapped in the thorny coils were a few white-plumed birds and a scatter of small furry animals with bushy tails. Nothing moved. As she watched, the vines slowly crept and uncurled, like snakes coming awake with the heat of the day. Elena suspected it was not the warmth of the sun but the smell of their blood that awakened this giant.
Frames of old skeletons dropped from its grip to splash in the water as it reached for fresh meat. Vines swung toward their boat, but even Elena could tell they were too short to reach them. She allowed herself to relax. Then, the flower’s stalk suddenly convulsed. Its stem lurched farther along the cypress branch, dragging its blossom and vines closer to the punt. A small squeak of fear escaped Elena’s lips.
“Get down,” Mycelle warned, planting a hand atop her head and forcing her lower. Yet the sides of the punt were so low that Elena could still see the creeping flower reach for them. Hundreds of vines, some thicker than her arm, unfurled to probe at the passing boat.
Jaston used his pole to push aside these reaching fingers as the punt glided along. Where his pole touched, the vines snapped around the wood, but its smooth and polished surface offered no purchase for the thorns. Determined, a thick vine slid past his pole and tried to wrap itself around their guide’s chest, but Er’ril was there, sword in hand. His silver weapon flashed, and the flower’s limb splashed to the water, severed clean with the one strike of the blade. Jaston nodded his thanks to the plainsman. Once past the last of the vines, Jaston shook off the clinging remnants of the moonblossom from his pole and rinsed off its surface. “Sleep poison,” he explained. “Wouldn’t want to get it on a cut.”
Elena stared behind her as the moonblossom vanished around the bend, its vines curling in frustration, its petals closing for the day. It would wait until nightfall to bloom again and lure the unsuspecting with its sweet scent. Elena shuddered. Was there nothing out here that didn’t want to eat you?
Soon they reached a wider channel, where a small current caught their boat and drew it languidly toward the deeper bogs. Jaston now only used his pole to guide them, rather than propel them forward. With the easing of his burden, he became more talkative—though Elena suspected he talked more to keep himself distracted than for companionship. He told them which plants contained healing oils and which fruits could kill with a nibble. He spoke at length about the kroc’an, one of the larger swamp predators, an aggressive, scaled carnivore with razor-sharp teeth that hunted the waters but nested on mud banks. They were a prized kill. Their skin made an excellent leather, and their meat was rich with fat. He even explained their mating habits. “A pair bonds for life,” he explained. “When you hunt them, you must kill both male and female, or the surviving mate will seek you out. They are vengeful beasts. But the worst is a nesting female. She will attack a boat merely for passing too near her eggs. Only a skilled swamper tackles a kroc’an hunt.”
“Hopefully we won’t encounter any,” Elena said.
Jaston’s eyebrows rose with this statement. “We’ve passed fifteen so far.”
Elena’s lips parted. She had not seen a single one.
“They hide in the muddy reeds.” Jaston pointed his pole. “There’s one now.”
It took further clues to finally discover the pair of black eyes peering
from between bunches of rushes. Its scaled snout barely poked above the water. It lay stone-still, the bulk of its body hidden in the water, but its thick armored tail lay draped on the bank behind it. It had to be as long as the boat.
“Just a young bull,” Jaston said, appraising it. “I doubt it’s even bonded yet. A full-grown adult can grow twice that length, and I’ve heard tales of kroc’an giants that can be even larger—beasts that could swallow this boat whole.”
Elena leaned closer to Mycelle.
Er’ril tired of these nature talks. “Do you know where we’re going?” he asked Jaston.
The scarred man nodded. “These are well-traveled byways. I plan to take us as far as the swampers have mapped. Beyond that, we’ll have to trust Mycelle’s seeking to guide us.”
“How much farther until we reach these untracked lands?”
“We’ll be there by nightfall. A swamper knows he risks his luck to spend more than one night out among the sloughs and bogs. ‘One day out and one day back’ is an old hunting rule.”
“Why’s that?” Er’ril asked.
“After a night, the swamp has your scent and begins to hunt you. Swampers that are gone for more than five days are mourned. Only a handful of men have survived longer than that in the swamp, and most have come back missing limbs or badly poisoned.”
“How long were you and Mycelle out while searching for this wit’ch the last time?”
“Seven days,” he said sullenly, glancing to his feet. “The longest anyone has risked the swamp.”
“And how far do you think you penetrated?”
Mycelle answered. “We traveled for three days into the swamp before we were forced back. Even that hard-won distance, I believe, only touched the fringe of its dark heart. To reach the core will take easily twice that.”
Er’ril pondered this news with dark brows.
“But this time the wit’ch wants us to come,” Elena said, rolling back her sleeve to expose the vines of choker’s nest that wrapped her arm. “She marked me with her calling. She won’t be hiding from us.”
Mycelle nodded as Elena shook her sleeve back over the vines. “Perhaps,” she mumbled. “But who knows the mind of someone who could live so long in these poisonous lands?”
“Does anyone know how long she’s been here?” Er’ril asked.
Jaston answered. “Tales of the wit’ch go back for generations. Hundreds of years. Some say since the Drowned Lands were first formed. Others say it was the wit’ch herself who sunk this region long ago.”
Elena sat straighter in her seat. “What do you mean sunk? Hasn’t this always been swamp?”
“No,” Er’ril said, his voice a pained whisper as he stared at the poisonous lands. “It was once a part of the plains of Standi.”
THE BLOOD HUNTER crouched, hidden among the tall reeds in the shallows near the edge of Drywater. He had circled the ramshackle pile of rafts to its southern point. His prey’s scent left the town here and headed into the swamps. He stopped to ponder the path that the wit’ch chose to follow. Why was she risking the dangers of these treacherous lands? It made no sense, not when it was an easy trek to follow the Landslip to the coast.
Torwren slipped into the depths of the swamp, his head sinking below the green waters. His limbs moved easily as he plodded through the muck at the bottom of the channel. He marched steadily, the fresh blood heating his skin. He relished the new strength in his limbs as he pushed aside tangling roots that snagged at him. Large predators swam toward him, blacker shadows in the murk, bared teeth like beacons in the gloom. But as they neared, it only took a glance of his red eyes to twist them away. A flash of their thick, scaled tails, and they were gone. Swamp eels writhed around his ankles and up his legs, then were poisoned by his touch. Their carcasses floated up, leaving a foul trail in the wake of his passage.
As he followed the waterway, he rose to the surface occasionally—not to breathe, since his body had passed beyond that need and blood fueled him now—but to sniff at the wit’ch’s trail, to make sure he did not stray from her path. With little resistance from the denizens of the swamp, he moved well. He would soon catch this wit’ch and taste her heart.
As the sun crested to midday, he reached a stronger current in the waters. He cursed under his breath. The swift waters would carry the wit’ch farther away from him, faster than he could march. Scowling, he increased his speed as the sun began its slide toward the western horizon. Still, where the current gave an advantage to the wit’ch, the night was a blood hunter’s friend. His prey needed to sleep. He did not. He would use the midnight hours to close the gap. So, like a boulder rolling relentlessly down a mountainside, he continued, unstoppable, determination smoldering in the flames of his red eyes.
As he continued, Torwren again wondered why his prey had chosen this route. Did she perhaps think to lose him among the bogs and fens?
He rose and sniffed at the trail. Her spoor was sharp and clear in the humid air. No, he would never lose her trail.
Never.
NIGHT HAD FALLEN by the time the punt glided up to a small island. Rope in hand, Jaston hopped to the small dock protruding from its muddy bank. “We’ll overnight here,” he said, tying off the punt.
A stone shack stood atop a short rise. Elena stared longingly at the cottage. It seemed much more substantial than its watery surroundings. The stacked rocks that composed its walls must have been ferried here to build this stout structure; nowhere in the swamps was there such solid building material. Even the door appeared to be ironwood, a tree foreign to these lands.
Er’ril stepped out next to their guide. He had his sword in his fist as he studied the island for any threat. Satisfied, he waved Elena out next. Mycelle followed, her arms burdened with their packs. Fardale guarded their rear.
Jaston led the way, kicking aside a snake from the path. It slithered into the reeds. Still, Elena kept her eye on its last location as she was led to the cottage. Snakes were sneaky.
Their guide pushed open the thick door; there was no lock. But then again, Elena thought, who would be thieving way out here? Jaston raised the lantern and surveyed the interior before allowing anyone to enter. He shone the light into every corner and even up into the rafters. His search was quick, since there was not a stick of furniture. The room was an empty cell. Not even a window pierced the walls. “It’s safe,” he declared, and allowed the others to enter.
“What is this place?” Elena asked, creeping carefully inside.
Fardale loped past her thighs and did his own search, using his nose for a more thorough survey of the cottage’s corners.
“It’s a hunter’s lodge,” Jaston said. “A place to rest with stone protecting your back. A few other such lodges are built along the edges of the swamp, none farther than a day’s journey from the Landslip.”
“ ‘One day in, one day out,’ ” Er’ril mumbled.
Jaston nodded. “Beyond here are areas rarely traveled by any but the foolhardy.”
With his dire words, the party set up camp inside the stone hut. Bedrolls were spread, and a cold dinner of dried fish and hard bread was served in silence. “We’ve an early start,” Er’ril declared, dusting off the crumbs from his lap. “I’ll take the first shift.”
“The lodge is secure against predators,” Jaston said. “There is no need to post guards.”
Er’ril stared at their guide. “You’ll take the second shift.”
Elena crawled into her roll, glad to leave the others to watch for snakes and kroc’an. Though she had spent most of the day seated in the punt, exhaustion nagged at her. The constant tension of their journey wearied her even more than the hike down the Landslip had. As she recalled the previous day’s events, an unanswered question arose in her mind. She rolled to her back and spotted Er’ril by the lantern.
He twisted the lantern’s wick to a low glow.
“Er’ril,” she said, drawing his eye, “you said earlier that the swamps were once a part of Standi. How is that
possible?” she pressed.
Mycelle paused from climbing in her own roll to glance at Er’ril.
He sighed, apparently resigning himself to this tale. “Before the Gul’gotha came to Alasea, there was no Landslip. This region was as flat as the rest of Standi. Even the neighboring Archipelago once numbered twice as many islands before the region sank.” His voice grew distant, his gaze wistful. “This was beautiful country here, scattered with wooded hills and countless brooks that flowed from the Teeth to the coast. When I was young, I used to hunt deer among these lands with my father . . . and once even . . . a long time ago . . .” His voice trailed off with some private memory.
“Then what happened?” Elena asked, pulling him back from his memories.
Er’ril’s eyes focused back on her. He scowled. “We were naive, blind to any thought that Alasea could ever be conquered. But one day, tremors and quakes shook the lands, heralding the arrival of the Dark Lord to our coasts. It was as if the very land were repulsed by his foul touch. At first, we thought it only a natural phenomenon. Quakes were not uncommon in the coastal areas. To further this misconception, word reached A’loa Glen of a huge volcanic eruption far to the north. It was told that the sun disappeared under a blanket of soot for almost an entire moon, and whole forests were turned to stone by its ash and heat. When the smoke finally cleared, a monstrous cone lay where only flat land had once spread. Barren and burnt black, it was a smoldering blister along the coastline.”
“What was it?”
“It was the birth of Blackhall.”
Gasps met his revelation. Blackhall was the seat of the Dark Lord, a great mountain that had been carved and hollowed into a sprawling subterranean city.
Er’ril continued his story. “As the clouds of soot faded and the tremors calmed, we assumed the worst was over. Then after a time, rumors were heard of strange and vile creatures spreading forth from the mountains. Horribly deformed monsters and pale, winged creatures.
“Skal’tum,” Elena said in a hushed voice.