Oathbreaker

by Cara Witter

  It had worked.

  Perchaya turned toward the tent. All of the plans, all of the sacrifices, all of it was worth it, if only Kenton and Nikaenor were safe.

  Perchaya pulled out her dagger, grabbed one of the fallen soldier’s swords, and entered the tent.

  Thirteen

  Daniella could no longer feel her feet. Her legs were entirely soaked through from the river they’d had to ford—as if the muck of the swamp wasn’t bad enough. The current was too strong and the water too deep where they’d first encountered it, but they weren’t far from the coast, where the water became a delta, wider but more shallow. They’d still been nearly up to their waists in the water, which was far colder than she would have liked, even in midst of summer. But the currents weren’t as bad, and they made it across.

  She wasn’t sure how much farther they could make it, though.

  Her eyes were beginning to droop as she plodded after Jaeme, carrying what felt like her twentieth reed torch. This part of the woods had higher ground, at least, and their feet no longer squelched as they walked. But now there was a powerfully acrid smell to the air that reminded her of the bitter-greens Lady Trianne made her hold in her mouth after the notable childhood scuffle that had ended with a black eye on Adiante’s dainty face. She felt a reflexive need to spit just thinking about the potent taste.

  Yet even that couldn’t keep her eyes entirely open.

  Daniella lurched forward, her foot caught in a root, and Jaeme’s arm shot out to steady her. “Whoa,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Daniella said, settling back to her feet. “I’m fine.”

  From behind her, Sayvil yawned. “We need to stop,” she said. “We can’t walk all the way to Haidshir without rest, and at least here we won’t have to sleep in the muck.”

  Daniella looked around. The sky was still dark, without so much as a glimmer of light, and Daniella didn’t know the stars well enough to be able to tell if it was coming soon. Surely dawn had to be approaching. The long walk had made her feel like she’d lived this night several times over. And while Jaeme’s kiss—gods, the heat of that kiss, the longing—had been a bright, beautiful moment, she was long since ready to be out of the swamp. And for future kisses, which she let herself dream of as she walked, to take place in more normal circumstances. Perhaps after a good hot bath.

  “How much farther is it to Haidshir?” Daniella asked.

  “At least as far as we’ve come, maybe farther,” Jaeme said.

  Daniella groaned—her feet were already blistering inside her boots, what with the wet and constant walking.

  “But not much farther,” Jaeme added quickly. “Half of it’s behind us, and—”

  He was cut off as they heard a noise from behind them, all hiss and howl.

  “What,” Daniella asked, her blood frozen, “was that?”

  She waited for of her companions to give her a logical explanation, but both Sayvil and Jaeme stood perfectly still.

  Then, from another direction, the noise came again, close by, two long “ah” sounds connected by a hiss. And in one soul crushing moment, Daniella realized the sounds were familiar.

  “Asha,” she said.

  Jaeme looked at her strangely.

  “It’s Old Foroclaean.” Daniella took a step closer to him, her hands shaking. “It means . . . food.”

  “Ahhhhhhhhsshaaaaa,” the voice croaked again, followed by a rushing sound in the nearby reeds.

  “By the gods,” Sayvil said. “The Nichtees—”

  Before she finished speaking, Jaeme’s sword was out and pointed in the direction of the voice.

  “They can’t be real,” Daniella said. “Can they? A thousand years living in this swamp—they’d have lost their language. They’d have—”

  A long ‘oh’ sound came from the other direction, followed by a harsh clicking consonant and a blood-chilling shriek.

  “Mouk ni,” Daniella said, barely above a whisper. “Very hungry.”

  The one nearest them made a similar sound, ending in an ah and a click instead. Mouk nak. More hungry.

  Gods. The Nichtees were arguing over them.

  “What did it say?” Sayvil asked.

  Something like a whine was all Daniella’s fear-strangled throat could muster.

  “I don’t care what it’s saying,” Jaeme said. “If it shows itself, I’m going to slit its throat.”

  Daniella wished she had something resembling a weapon. Sayvil brandished her own torch—which she’d replenished with a long-burning tree bark, now much dimmer than the wick and oil. The unearthly voices continued—from behind them, from either side—as more creatures joined in.

  “There aren’t any voices in that direction,” Jaeme said, pointing. He lightly pushed Daniella on the shoulder, back the way they had come.

  The voices grew louder, faster, as they walked. Eager. And though Daniella didn’t want to, she could make out a few of the words.

  Mah Ein.

  Raw flesh.

  Dak lakken.

  Close now.

  Tinadallen.

  All mine.

  As they hurried back, Daniella’s feet squelched through a low point in the high ground, and her mind shuttled through all the tales she’d read about these cursed creatures who emerged out of the very mud to flay their pray alive.

  Nichtees.

  Gods, what else could they be?

  As they reached a clearing near a pond where they’d recently stopped for water, all noise stopped, and the first of the creatures stepped out from the hidden shadows into the border of the torchlight. The Nichtee crouched low, the outline of its figure almost human, dark hair hanging in long, matted clumps from its head. The resemblance, however, ended there. Its face was dominated by two immense, unblinking eyes, globes that shone orange in the light’s reflection. The nose and fanged mouth had fused into something that resembled a snout, protruding slightly from flaps of skin on its cheeks. One arm swirled lazily in a pool of water as it watched them, and it brought the hand up to pass in front of its face, as if smelling their imprint in the marsh. The hand had three wicked claws in the place of fingers.

  “Asssshhhhha,” it hissed at them. Daniella stood petrified at the sight.

  Jaeme lunged forward at it, but the Nichtee slid to the side with astonishing speed. Sayvil swore behind her. Daniella whirled around and saw what she was swearing at—dozens of faces emerging from the foliage, huge eyes and fangs surrounding them, coming to collect on their bounty. They seemed to be cooperating, even after arguing over them. Daniella wondered with horror if they’d come to some agreement.

  Or if they’d only been making idle chatter while they guided the three of them here, to the wet battle ground beneath the dark canopy, where they would have a distinct advantage. Not even a single glint of moonlight penetrated the darkness.

  In the flickering light of the torches, Daniella saw a group of dark forms lunge through the air and land on Jaeme. He let out one solitary choked cry and slashed with his sword, but the force of the creature knocked him down into the water along with them.

  “Jaeme!” Daniella screamed, at the sight of the bodies thrashing in the water, Jaeme trapped and flailing under the Nichtees. She shoved her torch forward just as one of the foul faces turned up towards her, fangs snapping. It jumped back with a hiss of pain or fear as the torchlight burned brightly in its eyes, which still did not blink.

  Could not blink.

  Daniella swung the torch in a wide arc, halting them for the barest of seconds as the low flames sputtered briefly.

  “Stay back!” she shouted in Old Foroclaean, swinging the torch around again. One of the creatures sank a clawed hand into the marsh and flung mud at Daniella, which hissed as it hit the torch. Sayvil cried out as a creature attacked, pushing her down splashing into the mud with it. />
  Daniella whirled around and thrust her torch at the head of the creature, who shrieked, clawing at its face as it fell backwards. Sayvil lifted herself up, sputtering, as Daniella dove at the one still thrashing on Jaeme. The torch connected hard with the head of the Nichtee, who swiped back at her with its long claws. The torch hit the water with a sickening sizzle, and the world plunged into terrifying darkness.

  With the fear of the torches gone, the rest of the Nichtees wasted no time. Within the space of one heartbeat, she felt the hard blow of one of them jumping against her, knocking her into the pond. She sucked in the thick sludge as knife-sharp pain sliced through her leg and arm, the heavy creatures like boulders forcing her into the mud. With a last frantic effort, she dug forward to free her arms and connected with something heavy lying still beside her. Jaeme.

  The muddy water burned her lungs. Her head was swimming, and the feeling of spiders skittered under her skin, that terrible, familiar hate seeping in—

  And then there was a silver light, so bright it burned through her closed eyes, filling the bracken water with a flaming luminescence.

  The moon had finally peered through the clouds.

  The weight on her back was suddenly gone, and the skittering spider-feeling vanished. She pushed herself up, her head ringing, her lungs stinging, coughing out the vestiges of swamp in her mouth and throat. As she pulled her head out of the water, she heard curdling screams and splashes from the creatures escaping blindly into the dark of the swamp.

  Daniella could barely open her eyes, through which she could still see that the clearing was glowing. She forced her eyes open and immediately saw the reason.

  Sayvil stood directly under the tiny patch of moonlight that had filtered in through the dense overhang of leaves. Her arms hung loosely at her side, her head tilted back as if absorbing the stripe of her goddess’s light.

  It was eerily beautiful, and it threatened to transfix Daniella with a kind of dreamy fascination until a second later when she remembered Jaeme and lunged forward into the marsh. She found him easily, as she had been shoved down practically on top of him, and with a reserve of strength she didn’t think she had in her anymore, pulled the upper half of his body out of the water.

  Sayvil’s light faded, and they plunged into the black.

  “Sayvil!” Daniella called. “Help me.”

  There was another flash of moonlight, which prevented Daniella’s eyes from adjusting. She focused on holding Jaeme up out of the water as he sputtered and retched out swallowed sludge. Daniella clung to him. He groaned, raising a hand to his forehead.

  With another flash of light, Daniella saw with horror that much of what she’d taken for mud was actually blood, smeared across Jaeme’s face, but she couldn’t tell what the source of it was.

  Daniella tried to listen over his sputtering and Sayvil’s rustling amidst the intermittent flashes of light, but she didn’t hear sounds of the creatures returning.

  Finally, Jaeme spoke. “They’re everywhere,” he moaned. “Dani . . .”

  “Jaeme, I’m here, it’s—” she started, but was interrupted by a familiar clinking sound, and then one of Sayvil’s reeds glowed with flame. As the initial spark died down, the light grew dim compared to the bright flashes of moonlight.

  “It’s all right, Jaeme. We’re all right.” Daniella tried rather unsuccessfully to keep her voice soothing as she wiped his face to find the wound. Jaeme’s only response was another groan. He leaned his head back. She grabbed him around the waist and pulled upward with all the power left in her sapped muscles, letting out a loud groan of her own under his water-logged weight. Her leg and left arm burned, and she remembered the pain when the Nichtees attacked. She couldn’t allow herself to imagine what kind of wounds they were, couldn’t dwell on them.

  I can’t lose him.

  I love him, and I can’t lose him.

  That realization struck her so hard her knees went weak. But then Jaeme started to slip forward, and she propped herself up, her feet sinking deeper into the mud. There was no time to think about feelings now, only survival.

  Sayvil drew closer. “I think they’re gone,” she said. “Let me help you.” She wrapped one of Jaeme’s arms over her shoulders and helped Daniella lift. They took a step forward, dragging him with them. Then another, both of them shaking with the effort.

  The next time, Jaeme took a step forward as well. And another.

  Daniella continued, hope brimming anew as his weight shifted more and more onto his own feet, although he continued to lean on them. But it was bearable. Daniella gritted her teeth. She was going to get them out of this filthy swamp, no matter what. They would not die here.

  She repeated it in her mind with every struggling step they took; this would be her new mantra. Every so often, Jaeme muttered incoherently, his hand pressed against his shoulder, blood trickling through his fingers.

  They would not die here.

  She had no idea how many hours they walked, hunched and wounded and shivering and taking only the barest of breaks. The swamp around them grew incrementally sparser after a while, until Daniella thought that they could possibly see their path even without Sayvil’s burning reeds.

  All Daniella knew was that the most beautiful sight she had ever seen was the clearing of grassland they happened upon, firmly on dry ground and away from mud and muck and the threat of Nichtees. And though they had farther to go yet before they reached Haidshir, Daniella could no longer take another step without rest. Her legs buckled and she fell to her knees, weeping. Sayvil did the same, and Jaeme collapsed to the firm earth, as the rosy dawn painted the sky with light.

  Behind them, the swamp hummed with the buzzing of flies and the chirping of crickets, and even the low throaty croak of a bullfrog that Daniella was certain Nikaenor would have caught for breakfast—all sounds that had been absent in the domain of the Nichtees. Her stomach rumbled, and she knew that, wounded and exhausted as they were, there would be nothing more to eat than whatever nearby roots Sayvil could forage.

  But they’d made it out of the depths of the swamp. The Nichtees were behind them. They did not die.

  Daniella only hoped that the others had been so lucky.

  Fourteen

  Kenton waited inside the tent, his wrists burning from the rope chafing against his raw skin. His body was tense, at the ready, hoping the guards outside would fail to catch the new prisoners, who could very well be some of his friends.

  Run, he thought. Get out while you can.

  But the sounds of fighting outside the tent grew brutal, and Kenton hoped it wasn’t his friends who were taking the beating.

  Then the tent door opened, and Perchaya stood there in her night dress and boots, holding a dagger in front of her and a sword in the other hand.

  Kenton blinked.

  “Perchaya,” Nikaenor whispered in awe, as if he was seeing a vision.

  “All right you two, it’s time to go,” Perchaya said. She knelt down by Kenton, dropping the sword, and began cutting at the ropes at his wrists with the dagger. She grinned broadly at his obvious surprise. “That is, if you’re ready.”

  Kenton watched her in shock for a moment longer, improbably here in the prisoners’ tent with him, cutting away at his wrist ropes. He pushed away the bizarre thought that maybe he had, in fact, fallen asleep.

  “They caught you,” he said. “And you . . . escaped?”

  “They didn’t catch me,” Perchaya said. “I came to rescue you.” One of the ropes broke apart, freeing his hands enough to wiggle them out completely. She handed the sword to Kenton before bending down to free Nikaenor. “I’ll explain later. Let’s get you two out of here first. I don’t know how much time we have.” She cut furiously at the ropes on Nikaenor’s wrists, while Nikaenor beamed up at her like she was his goddess herself.

  Kenton held the sword hilt loosely
at first, getting a feel for its weight and size. It was slightly lighter than his own, but not enough to throw him off in a fight.

  She’d come to rescue them. As if that were the most natural thing in the world. He allowed himself one more glance at her. Her hair was stringy and matted, her face sweaty from the exertion of the fight outside, he guessed, and whatever else in the gods’ names she’d been doing.

  And yet, Kenton realized, never before that moment had he found her more beautiful.

  There wasn’t time for this. He crept to the entrance of the tent and pulled open the flap just enough to see out. Two soldiers—one rather bulky and impassive, the other looking noticeably anxious—flanked the tent.

  A wiry young man wearing Foroclaean peasant garb leaned against the thick trunk of the oak tree in front of them, also looking fearfully around him. The bodies of two more soldiers lay sprawled on the ground, and the other soldiers were trying awkwardly to stand. Kenton shut the tent flap again as Perchaya helped Nikaenor to his feet.

  “You snuck in with townspeople wearing soldiers’ uniforms,” Kenton said with marked admiration.

  Perchaya grinned back. “Well, I learned from the best.” She glanced down at his chest when she said this, and Kenton suddenly remembered that he, too, was still wearing pieces of the black and gold tunic of the soldier from the inn. Her smile fell as she saw him more clearly. “Gods, your face . . . what did they do?”

  “They beat him to all hells,” Nikaenor said. “But he saved us. You should have seen—”

  Kenton shrugged dismissively, though even that motion hurt. “It’s certainly not the worst beating I’ve had in a tavern. I’ll be fine. So . . . you started a fire somewhere to distract the guards and then—”

  “And then we all talked too much,” Perchaya said, “and got caught again by the guards and carted off to Diamis.” She stepped outside just enough to grab a uniform from one of her accomplices, and tucked her nightdress into the breeches she wore underneath before pulling the uniform on. Then she twisted her hair to tuck it inside the helmet.