The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1)

by Ben S. Dobson

Their equivalent of the People’s Plateau on Dal’s Rest. I’m even sneaking around in a disguise. He could almost pretend it was familiar when he looked at it that way. Except if they catch me I don’t get scolded by Father; I get put to death.

  Zerill guided Josen into a throng of moving bodies, all travelling together. Even without looking up he could feel their current pushing against him, drawing him toward some destination he couldn’t begin to guess at. His palms were damp, sweaty even in the chill of the Swamp. If I could just see who they are, where they’re going. Spirit of All, couldn’t she have at least told me that much?

  Unable to resist, he risked a quick glance at the swamplings surrounding him, lifting his head just enough to see without revealing his face. They were near enough that he could make out individual forms, just barely. The shapelessness of the silhouettes suggested robes like his, at least from the waist down—he didn’t dare look higher. Some few figures had more defined outlines, probably warriors like Zerill in close-fitting hides; protrusions at their hips and backs might have been weapon hilts, spear hafts. But those figures were rarer, outnumbered by the robes—or what he guessed were robes—at least ten to one.

  This is why we had to go now. One robed man could hide among many, even with an awkward gait. Whatever this was—some swampling ceremony or rite he didn’t understand—it would serve to mask their escape. Until someone notices that if Zerill and “Verik” are both here, there’s no one left guarding their prisoner.

  But no alarm was raised, and he and Zerill walked on amid the robed procession.

  From what little Josen could see and hear, he didn’t think he was the only one who had trouble walking. He couldn’t say whether they were injured or tired or just old, but many of the robed figures moved as unsteadily as he did, limping and shuffling, aided by nearby warriors when they stumbled. His own weakness had seemed so conspicuous at first, but now he could understand why it passed without question.

  Which brought a different curiosity with it: I know what happened to me, but what’s wrong with the rest of them? A heavy knot tied itself in the pit of his stomach at the thought, and every step toward their unknown destination pulled it tighter.

  The procession moved slowly, but even so it was not terribly long before they crossed the loosely defined border of the swamplings’ Kinhome, heading deeper into the uncharted eastern Swamp. They couldn’t have been walking more than a half-hour when the group came to a halt—at the pace they’d been keeping, Josen guessed that they were still within shouting distance of the Kinhome. For a loud shout, at least. Not that they tend to do much of that. But even such a short walk was nearly too much for him. His legs and left side were pain made into flesh, and every breath felt like another of Castar’s daggers piercing his lung. If Zerill hadn’t been there to hold him, he was certain he’d have collapsed well before the halfway point.

  As soon as they stopped, Zerill drew him toward the edge of the crowd. She faced inward, half in front of him, watching the others and shielding Josen from view with her body. It was all he could do not to lie down on the rough ground behind her and close his eyes, but this obviously wasn’t the time for that. Instead, he leaned against her back, and she accepted his weight with no more than a slight widening of her stance.

  Hidden behind Zerill, he could look around more freely—or he hoped he could, because he intended to. He could only take so much blindness and ignorance; fear was easier. If it gets me killed, at least I’ll die knowing what in the Deep is going on. Bracing himself for the shouts of alarm he half-expected and thoroughly dreaded, he lifted his head.

  No one noticed.

  He almost laughed at himself, scared as he was. Overestimating my own importance again. Of course they’re not looking. I’m just another robe. He was in real danger, and being seen would get him killed, but the swamplings hadn’t come out here for nothing. They weren’t going to stop what they were doing—whatever that might be—to stare at him. As long as I don’t give them a reason to.

  His eyes had adjusted to the darkness as much as they were going to, and a sparse dusting of witchmoss adorned a stone ridge some distance to his left, glowing faintly. For the first time since he’d woken, he wasn’t effectively blind. And now that he could see his surroundings better, they were nothing special.

  The Swamp was barren here; there were no boggrove trees, no low-hanging vines or luminescent toadstools. Just rocks. The earth was hard and rough beneath his feet, mostly flat, but there were black outlines all around—boulders and jagged spires and long stone ridges like the detritus of some giant burrowing creature passing below. Which, now that he thought of it, wasn’t out of the question so far into Deepling territory. Josen shivered, and not just from the cold.

  He hadn’t noticed them before, but at the back of the procession several warriors carried long poles between them, and beneath each pole dangled what could only be a large animal carcass. These warriors stepped forward now and carried their burdens to the center of the crowd, then cut the carcasses loose. There were six corpses in total, each as large as a man or larger, piled in a mound that might have reached Josen’s chest. He couldn’t name all the creatures, but he would have guessed one to be a large mistcat, and another long shadow with short legs a longjaw lizard. Some kind of sacrifice?

  The robed figures formed a ring around the pile of dead beasts. Perhaps a dozen of them stepped forward, falling to their knees before the carcasses; the same number of warriors pushed to the front of the crowd with spears in hand, filling the gaps between the kneeling men and women. It was hard to see from his spot at the back, but the crowd wasn’t thick enough to completely obscure Josen’s view—he could just barely make out the nearest kneeling figure through gaps in the arms and legs in front of him. Through the shadows, he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but there was something in its hand; something that caught the pale light of the witchmoss just enough to reveal a thin, pointed shape. A knife? The knot in his stomach tightened.

  The figure raised its arm, and now there was no doubt—it was a knife. Not metal, but smooth stone by its dull gleam. The blade swept down, slashed at the nearest carcass, then again, and again. Why? They’re already dead. But he could answer that question himself. This was something dark, and it needed blood. This was what Eian had tried to warn him about. Deepcraft.

  And now the figure gripped its own blade, drew it across one palm, then the other, and pressed both wounded hands against the bloodsoaked earth.

  If he’d thought his legs would carry him, Josen would have run then, as fast and as far as he could, and if he’d died lost and alone in the Swamp, so be it. But even if he’d had the strength, he couldn’t have escaped; Zerill grabbed his wrist, as if she could sense his panic. And there was something else, too, that held him in place: a dark curiosity. Almost desire. A part of him didn’t want to flee—it wanted to get closer. Lord of Eagles, no.

  He’d felt this before.

  The ground trembled beneath his feet.

  There was a palpable eagerness in the robed figures—they shifted inward almost as one, filled in whatever space there was in an attempt to move closer to the circle’s center. Josen was only barely aware that he was pressing forward himself until Zerill stopped him. Her grip on his wrist tightened, and she took two steps back, separating them from the crowd. Only by a foot or so, but suddenly they were outside looking in. And no one is watching us.

  Another tremor underfoot, and then the noise: something grinding, shifting, scraping. Louder, louder, louder…

  Zerill spun at the exact moment the ground split open. The mound of offerings at the circle’s center shifted abruptly, sinking out of Josen’s sight just as her arm wrapped around his waist. Then he was moving, pulled away behind the sound of earth and flesh tearing.

  But even as he struggled to keep his feet under him and match Zerill’s pace, he couldn’t stop himself from looking back. It’s true. They summon the Deeplings. But… I saw one attack her. She killed it. Wh
y? He couldn’t make sense of it, and he didn’t know if he wanted to. By the Above, I wish I was home. Even the Keep was better than this place.

  Zerill stopped behind a low section of the stone ridge that Josen had noticed before, where the witchmoss grew. They were behind the light on this side of it, hidden in the ridge’s shadow; the only thing Josen could see was the faint green glow peeking over the edge. He dropped to his knees and braced his good arm against the rock, fought to draw enough breath into his aching lungs.

  Zerill didn’t let him rest. Hooking a hand beneath his arm, she pulled him roughly to his feet, high enough that he could see over the ridge. With her free hand, she grabbed his chin and forced his eyes toward the ritual. He didn’t need words or signs to interpret that: she wanted him to watch.

  Where the carcasses had been, a dark humanoid figure towered several feet above the heads of the swamplings. Witchlight glistened off its glossy black skin; its head and chest were smooth, featureless but for a raw hole of a mouth with serrated mandibles on either side. Its lower body was hidden by the figures surrounding it, but the size of its swollen carapace had forced the circle to widen. A beetleback. Just like the ones who’d attacked Castar’s men. Like the beast Zerill had killed while her sister died on Josen’s sword.

  The beetleback bent low, and Josen heard the wet sound of meat tearing; he thanked the Wind of Grace that the crowd of swamplings obscured the monster’s feasting. It didn’t take long to finish its meal—those bladed arms and that pincered maw might have been terribly impractical for anything else, but they were made to rend and devour. When it was done, the monster straightened again and fell still, its arms half-bent so that their blades crossed just above the base of its abdomen. It almost looks like it’s… waiting.

  The warriors at the center of the circle hefted their spears and stepped closer; a dozen men and women laid spear-heads against joints and gaps in the Deepling’s armor. What are they doing? Why isn’t it fighting? Josen had seen armored knights torn from shoulder to groin in a single sweep of those black blades—even now, he was sure it could kill a half-dozen swamplings before they could use their spears.

  But the beetleback didn’t move. In its stillness, it was almost statuesque. Its chitin could have been carved obsidian, and its silhouette was as sleek and perfect as the sculptures in the Windsmouth—tall and broad-shouldered, with the lean musculature of an athlete. There was a sort of dark beauty there, though it made Josen sick to his stomach to admit it to himself.

  The warriors thrust their spears in one motion, penetrating the Deepling’s armor at a dozen points. It didn’t flinch. The death throes of the beetleback Zerill had killed had been uncontrolled and destructive, slicing through a boggrove trunk like so much raw meat; this one moved only when it died, slumping forward against the spears piercing its chest and stomach. Why summon it just to kill it? Josen didn’t know exactly what he’d just seen, but it scared him—a deep, quiet fear, a voice in the back of his mind whispering that this wasn’t the world he knew anymore.

  He felt a different kind of fear a moment later, when the noise began: plain, familiar panic. He’d nearly become used to the silence; so much sound here seemed wrong here, a portent of something terrible. It came from the direction of the Kinhome, and it sounded human, but it was nothing like a language—just uncanny imitations of the beasts of the Swamp, in short, precise bursts. Some sort of swampling signal. They know I’m gone. We need to get out of here.

  It was only then that he realized Zerill wasn’t holding him anymore. He pushed himself off the rock—barely keeping his balance on trembling legs—and turned to search the darkness for her.

  She was gone.

  And worse, someone was rounding the ridge, little more than a black outline. It was too dark to discern a face. For a moment Josen thought it was Zerill returning. But no, too wide and too tall—it was a man, and he had a spear in his hand. One of the warriors from the ceremony. The man’s hand moved, some swampling sign, and he increased his pace. Immediately Josen ducked his head, letting his hood fall over his face. Did he see?

  The man approached soundlessly; his footfalls were silent, and he didn’t speak. Not aloud, anyway, and Josen couldn’t keep his head down and watch the man’s hands at the same time, even if he’d known how to answer. Where is Zerill? What in the Deep am I supposed to do? His knees shook, threatening to give out at any moment.

  He let them.

  His legs collapsed under him, and he caught himself on his right hand and knee, his left leg splayed out behind him. Come on. Help me up. On the way there, the warriors had been helping the robed men and women walk; they must have been accustomed to this kind of weakness. If he could get the man to lower his guard and bend down, maybe he could… What? Overpower him, with one dead arm and no weapon? But he had to try, or else surrender himself for execution.

  The ends of the man’s feet stepped into sight, half-ovals a shade lighter than the ground beneath. Josen kept his head down, waiting. The warrior bent low, grabbed his shoulder with strong fingers. Now. Josen looked up to meet the other man’s eyes—at this range, he could see the big black orbs widen even in the dark. That moment of shock was the best chance Josen was going to get.

  He gathered his strength and lunged.

  Or at least he tried to. His weakened muscles rebelled, and his left knee buckled. He fell, pinning his good arm beneath his belly and knocking the wind from his lungs.

  The man opened his mouth to shout.

  Zerill’s hand clapped over it.

  She had her elbow around the other warrior’s throat in an instant, squeezing tight. The man struggled, pulled at her forearm; Zerill’s grip didn’t falter. But her hands were full, and his spear was still free. Even in the dark, Josen could see him raise his arm, see the long spear-blade stab up and back.

  Josen’s right arm was trapped under him, but he had to do something. Without thinking, he jabbed his left hand forward. Agony exploded in the knots of flesh down his side, like a half-dozen huge boils bursting at once. Black spots swam in front of his eyes. A scream tried to force its way up his throat, and he held it back behind gritted teeth. His fingers hooked the bottom of the haft halfway through the spear’s arc. The muscles and tendons in his arm pulled tight, felt near to breaking under the strain, but he forced his hand to close. It was all he could to do just to hold on; his own dead weight was the only resistance he could offer.

  It was enough.

  Josen felt the man’s grip on the spear falter and fail, saw him go limp in Zerill’s arms. She released her hold, and the man collapsed to the ground at her feet, unconscious—or dead, for all Josen knew.

  Even as the man fell Zerill was stepping over him, already hauling Josen to his feet without a wasted moment. “Move,” she whispered urgently, ducking her head beneath his arm to support him.

  Fire raged in the flesh along his side; daggers of ice pierced his lung with every breath. God Above, nothing has ever hurt this much. But capture meant death, so he forced his feet to move. He didn’t know the way; even if he’d been able to see more than a few feet ahead through the dark, he would have been lost. It was only Zerill’s arm around his waist that led him on, guided his steps. Together, they raced away from the Kinhome with all the speed they could muster.

  The signals didn’t stop as they fled. Where there had been silence before, now the Swamp was full of animal-like calls: croaks and chitters and howls, some Josen could place, others from beasts he had never heard before. But they were too perfect for animals, too human—the calls of swamplings coordinating their search.

  And then a single voice silenced the rest of the noise, ringing clear and loud through the Swamp.

  “Do not make me hunt you, Zerill. A highlander is not worth exile.”

  Zerill seemed to know the voice; her step faltered, and Josen could hardly blame her. She’d be a fool to risk banishment for me. Nothing I say is going to change anything. But she didn’t turn back. The hesitation only laste
d a moment, and then she was dragging him through the fog once more.

  “Why?” he asked, remembering a time when she’d asked him the same.

  If she had a better answer than he had that night in Cliffside, she didn’t give it. “Faster,” was all she said. “Verik will be waiting.”

  23. Revelations

  Shona

  Shona stood atop the High Eyrie, at the very peak of the Sky God’s Sword, looking down over Skysreach.

  That the view from the most holy of eyries was so desolate seemed ironic to her. In Greenwall, the temple wore a skirt of rich greens and yellows, fertile fields draped about its base in every direction; beneath the Royal Eyrie, the layers of the Plateaus stacked atop one another like some elaborate baker’s confection. But here on the Sky God’s Sword, no divine gifts were much in evidence. It was all sheer cliffs and switchback paths, grey on grey from mist to mountaintop. The stone-hewn homes and buildings of Skysreach were scarcely distinguishable from the mountain crags they sat upon, and the only growth to speak of was brittle, colorless scrub. Lower on the mountain, some water-pumping windmills provided irrigation to a few failing rice terraces, but they yielded little even in season, and that was still months away. The Sword was simply too narrow and too steep for anything living to flourish—most of the crops and meat the duchy lived on came from elsewhere.

  It was the highest duchy in the Peaks, though. It had that, at least. Shona had spent most of her life in Greenwall, flat and low in the mist; here, the drop from the High Eyrie’s apex to the mist-line was enough to make her lightheaded. Even before King Kaleb had decreed Skysreach the Convocation’s new home, it had served as a holy retreat for chastors to meditate, nearer to the Above than any place in the kingdom save the inaccessible heights of the Godspire. For all but the most asceticly devout, though, Skysreach was a place to be spoken of respectfully but rarely visited.

  Except when the king is dying, apparently.