by Colt, K. J.
I bit my lip and took a deep breath. The pain in Hewgrim’s thin face hit me like a punch. He had the wan, hollow look of man filled with despair. I knew the dark secret of his thoughts. Why them? Why not me? How am I to go on? Though my hands twitched with the desire to step forward and offer comfort, I dug my fingernails into my palms and shoved away the tide of my memories.
Besides, the one and only time I had tried to offer comfort to another my curse had knocked me unconscious. Comfort-offering counted as communication, apparently.
“What is this plague?” Azyrin asked gently, covering the old man’s hands with his large blue ones.
Hewgrim nodded to Deohan. The younger man nodded slowly and then reached up and dragged his cap off.
Makha cursed, Drake and Rahiel leaned away and even I winced. Deohan’s head was bald and hideously marred with deep purple ridges, his scalp looking like fruit left too long in the sun.
“I’m lucky,” he said, his gaze fixed on the hat clutched in his hands. “I lived and the scarring didn’t get to my face.”
“We’re calling it the wine pox, since it stains those few who survive.” Hewgrim gave himself a little shake. “If the curse spreads to the fields, the rice will be gone and with it the last hope of saving Strongwater Barrow.”
“Killing the witches ends the curse,” Azyrin said and Hewgrim nodded as though the shaman had asked a question or perhaps reaffirmed what the old adventurer already suspected.
As though it is that easy to kill a witch. I choked back a snort. My head already hurt enough from the smoke and the stifling heat in the breezeless lodge.
“You said you need to pay your dues? If you help us, I will waive your fee. Even if the Guild doesn’t approve once we’ve got a scry mirror again, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket.”
“We will do what we can,” Drake said. Even he seemed subdued by the old man’s story.
“I want to talk to your priests of Thunla,” Azyrin said.
“No priests left, we’ve only got a shrine here, not a proper temple. Amos’s initiates Edan and Nena are all that’s left. They are doing what they can, but. . .”
“I will talk to them,” Azyrin said.
“Is there someone who can show us where these witches might be?” Makha asked.
“Hiljen. If she’s still alive to talk. She’s at the Silver Cup with the rest of the survivors. Her and. . .” Hewgrim’s voice caught again and he paused for a steadying breath, “others, they went out to try to find the witches and either placate or kill them to end these horrors. She’s the only one that returned and I don’t know how long she has.”
“If’n you want to bathe, I can haul water for you,” Deohan said. He had pulled his cap back on and now stood up. “Only clean water in town is the spring at the shrine, so don’t drink the stuff from the pump.”
“Of course, I’m sorry. We’re so consumed by our troubles we haven’t even made proper welcome.” Hewgrim pushed himself to his feet. “You can bunk upstairs if you don’t mind plain grass mattresses, stairs are through that door.”
I followed the others through the door and up to the second storey. I stowed my pack on a bunk and followed Azyrin and Makha as we made our way to the shrine. I kept Thorn and a quiver of arrows on me.
The initiate Edan was an earnest young human male with a nervous tick in his left eye. He looked to be always winking and his white cassock was streaked with old blood and other even less pleasant substances. He greeted Azyrin as though the half-orc were his unicorn goddess made flesh. I wondered what he would make of our runty pink unicorn, but Rahiel and Bill had stayed behind at the charterhouse. Probably for the best. It was a testament to how exhausted and desperate things were that both Hewgrim and Deohan had barely blinked when introduced to our pixie-goblin and her familiar.
The initiate took Azyrin and I to Hiljen. The whole Silver Cup had been appropriated as a sick house. Pox-marred faces stared suspiciously at us from makeshift beds that had replaced the tables which should have been adorning the Inn’s common room. Eyes dark with exhaustion, illness, and grief followed us up the side stairs and by the time we reached Hiljen’s room, my fingers ached to make pin cushions out of those witches.
Hiljen had been spared the pox, but the human woman’s face was a death’s mask, her grey eyes sunken and lamp-bright with fever. The smell of infection and that sickly sweet stench of dying flesh did not bode well for her chances.
“One of their crocodile men got me,” she whispered after Azyrin gently asked her to tell us what had happened. “Aetag distracted them and I crawled off, wedged myself under a log. I ain’t proud.” She coughed and thick black sputum stained the cloth Edan rushed to put in front of her mouth.
“Where did you fight them?” Azyrin said. His jaw was so tight he could barely grind the words out, his tusks digging into his upper lip left small impressions in his blue skin.
Hiljen gave us rough directions, a rough series of landmarks which I committed to my formidable memory. She sank back into her stained bedding and closed her eyes as she finished, the last of her energy drained.
“Can you help her?” Edan asked softly.
Azyrin shook his head. “I can ease suffering. But it will be ending, not saving.”
“Promise you will kill the witches.” Hiljen spoke again, the strength in her voice surprising.
I promise. What had been done to this town was evil. I considered it only a small bonus that ending the curse would count toward my one thousand good deeds. Bravery and perseverance in the face of such dire circumstances was to be admired. I felt a pang of guilt over my thoughts from earlier about the fires and human feebleness.
“We will do everything in our power,” Azyrin said.
“Let me go,” Hiljen whispered, her sunken eyes shifting to Edan.
Tears filled the initiate’s eyes and he nodded quickly and then knelt at the side of the bed.
Azyrin’s potion worked quickly. He pulled the blanket up over Hiljen’s peaceful face and we left quietly. I glanced back, fixing in my memory the image of Edan kneeling with silent tears streaking his grimy face, his hands still clutching the arm of a dead woman.
The directions from the dead hunter sent us north into what turned out to be a proper swamp. The land we’d traversed had been marshy but cultivated, curbed by human hands and the water levels drained and contained. To the north of Strongwater Barrow, once we cleared the cursed zone, true swamp took over. Hillocks of deceptively infirm spargrass dotted the more open areas while thick, slimy moss dripped from the trees and formed insect-infested, pungent curtains that blocked the sunlight and plunged us into an eerie green twilight.
Or perhaps it was only eerie because we were hunting witches. We had been slogging our way for hours in the stifling heat and damp, but likely hadn’t gone more than a few miles from the town.
We moved in our usual traveling order. I took the lead, ranging ahead a short ways where my keener hearing and better vision might alert me to any dangers. There were always dangers even on a clear, wide road, much less in a dank, dim swamp. One thing I had quickly learned about the mortal realm was that it was teeming with life and most of it will kill you if given half a chance. Makha followed in my wake and I didn’t envy her heavy armor and what was probably a sweaty oven inside her slatted steel helm. We carried only water and our weapons. Azyrin followed his wife with his falchion sheathed at his side and his embroidered bag of components and potions tied to his belt. Drake brought up the rear, wearing a sensible sleeveless leather vest and thigh-high boots that he’d spent the previous evening waterproofing with a noxious yellow liquid.
I squished and hopped my way forward, dreaming of dry feet and almost glad for the heavy herbal scent of the insect-repelling salve Azyrin had insisted I paste onto the exposed skin of my face. My hair was tied up with leather thongs but a tendril escaped and curled, teasing the points of my ears. Incessant buzzing, the hum of insect life, and the rustling of unseen birds set me on edge, making
my ears itch worse and my neck hurt from the tension in my muscles. As an Elemental elf who used to be capable of singing whole landscapes into being, I have a deep appreciation for nature, but only a crazy person would have sung to life this sopping, muddy place. Even the trees here were slick with algae that oozed from the trunks like ichor from a wound, their branches curving downwards in what I imagined to be tree-like resignation.
“This is enough to make me wish I’d been right about undead,” Drake muttered.
“You could have remained in town,” Rahiel told him in a tone that suggested she wished he had. She was the only one of us not slogging through the knee-and sometimes waist-deep fetid sludge. Bill had his jeweled collar on, which allowed him to fly, and the sorceress sat primly on his back, her wand out with a magic shield emanating from it which she used to shove aside the tangling moss.
“And risk catching the wine pox? Yah, no. Women the world over would mourn the loss o’this face.”
“Clamp your gums, gumblelumps,” Makha said.
Silver mist flowed out of a nearby cypress and coalesced into the mist-lynx. I heard Drake suppress a curse. Fade’s tufted ears flicked back toward the noise and then his silver eyes focused on me. I raised my bow, bringing our group to a stop. The mist-lynx coughed, once, twice, and turned his head to our left.
I nocked an arrow and heard the scrape of swords sliding from sheaths behind me. The swamp went silent around us and Fade leapt back into his tree, staying in solid form this time.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” Drake cried out, breaking the tension.
“What? What do you see?” Azyrin asked and I heard splashing, probably the shaman moving to Drake’s side.
“No one heard that? That horrible screaming?”
“No. I heard nothing.”
“Nope.”
“No one screamed but you, man-child.”
I didn’t move, keeping my eyes on the direction in which Fade had indicated some threat lurked. Shaking my head would have meant a headache and I had no need for one before a battle with multiple witches. If we ever found the cursed things.
“I, uh, I don’t know. I heard it, damnit. Like the wail of a banshee before you die.”
Branches cracked and snapped in the direction I was staring. For a moment I saw nothing but the shivering movement of the cypress boughs through the curtains of stinking moss. Then, with a piercing screech, the owlboars smashed down on us.
Owlboars are big as hunting hounds with the tusked head of a boar, a wickedly spiked long, mobile tail, and clawed wings that can catch and rend even metal. They also have the temperament of a rabid wolverine which is why it is fortunate they are never found in quantities of more than one. Except my quick count took in four of the creatures as they smashed through the undergrowth with death in their mad red eyes.
My first arrow took the nearest one through the wing, toppling it in midleap. It crashed with a wet smack into the swamp in front of Makha and she bashed it with her shield. I stumbled backward into more open ground and grabbed another arrow.
“Why are there so many?” Drake yelled.
“Some knucklerotting enchantment,” Makha said, punctuating her words with a slash of her sword. Metal on metal grated as the owlboar threw its weight into her shield, forcing the metal rim back against her gardbrace.
“Witch magic,” Azyrin grunted.
Rahiel screamed unintelligible syllables and threw a handful of glowing dust at another of the creatures. The owlboar fanned its wings, rearing up on its hind legs and bellowing in pain as the dust turned to a shower of molten sparks. I pivoted and took aim. My arrow pierced deep into its belly and its lifeblood spurted, staining the swamp as it crashed into the mud.
I nocked another arrow and pivoted toward Drake’s cry. Two more owlboars had flanked the rogue and the shaman. My companions stood back-to-back, Azyrin’s falchion flashing out to slice the thick forehead of one beast as it sprang in, opening a shallow wound. Drake’s left arm was bleeding but he kept hold of his rapier, its wicked tip parrying the slashing tail of the second owlboar. Grunts and shrieks filled the stagnant air.
My fingers were slick on the bowstring and sweat threatened to drip into my eyes. I sucked in a breath and pulled the arrow back until the hawk’s feather fletching brushed my lips. Breathe out slow, release. Don’t aim, just kill. My shot buried itself in Drake’s owlboar’s side but the crazed beast didn’t waver in its attack. Its heavy tail snicked around, spraying fetid mud. Drake jumped the whipping bone spikes and reversed his grip on his rapier, stabbing downward. He missed the tail and had to scramble backward as he flicked his sword back to guard.
Draw, target, release. My second arrow carved a canal through the owlboar’s back feathers, distracting the creature long enough for Drake to lunge and send his slender blade through one of its rolling red eyes and into its brain.
Then the witch showed herself. She materialized out of the trees in a buzzing swarm of wasps, sickly green mist swirling around her feet. She wore a heavy cloak and the insects surrounding her made it hard to focus on her features. I shot an arrow straight at her heart. The wasps flowed in front of her and knocked it aside. The green mist billowed, forming shapes like human skulls. I shook my head as bile rose in my throat and a stench worse than a pile of dead fish washed over me.
Fade leapt from the trees, slamming into the witch. He yowled as the swarm engulfed him, then he turned to mist again, flowing away. The swarm followed him. Both mist-lynx and wasps disappeared into the moss-choked trees.
Exposed, the witch raised her arms and the skulls drifted closer. Drake leapt back and Rahiel sent a wall of flames into the green, screaming mist. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Makha drop her shield onto the dead owlboar at her feet, her gauntleted hand going to her throat. Azyrin cried out and turned toward her, gripping his amulet with his free hand. His blue skin started to glow.
Green light exploded around me as I drew another arrow and I dove to the side on reflex. Pain surged through my shoulder as I hit the mud and I squeezed my stinging eyes shut. The swamp mud tasted worse than it smelled and I shoved away the thought of what had shit or died here to create the rotten paste I spat out.
I struggled to my feet, forcing my eyes to focus through the haze of grit. Sand poured from Makha’s mouth. The ground around her had turned to thick black sand that sucked and sank around her heavy body. Despite her struggles, or perhaps because of them, she had sunk nearly to her armored waist in the shifting sands. I tried to lunge forward but the air had turned to thick soup and every movement felt as though my limbs were bread dough instead of muscle and bone.
I’m coming. Use your sword! Brace yourself. I wished I could yell, could do more than lay in the muck opening and closing my mouth like a catfish caught in a drought. A quick glance showed Rahiel and Bill circling as the sorceress continued to channel flames. Her magic fire held the screaming skulls at bay though it did nothing to stem the spine-mangling screeching. Drake was busy keeping the remaining owlboar off Azyrin as the shaman chanted, his falchion pointed at the witch. Gold light collected on the curved tip of his blade.
For a moment I wanted to crawl over and yank him around. Couldn’t he see his wife was suffocating and if that didn’t kill her quickly enough, the sinkhole would? I spit out more sludge. He wouldn’t abandon his wife. The two were thick as, as. . . mud. Even after all this time, faith was still difficult for me. Azyrin would do what he needed to do, I had to trust that.
Which left me the only one free to act. Soup or no, limp limbs or no, I was the only one near Makha. The quicksand had dragged her down until only her ridiculous pauldrons and helmet were above ground. Her tanned face was corpse-pale inside its steel cage, her eyes bloodshot from lack of air.
I half-staggered, half-crawled the distance between us, trying to tell her with my eyes to hang on. She flailed with her huge sword, jabbing it into a nearby root. It slowed the sinking, but not the flow of sand from her mouth. I shoved Thorn toward her, gritti
ng my teeth against the pain in my shoulders as she grabbed on. I lay back in the mud, digging my heels in as I tried to haul her up.
Red flecks blurred my vision and my arms tried to dislocate themselves from the strain. She was too large and wearing too much armor for me to free her. Her grip slid on Thorn and she looked at me with desperate, despairing eyes as she sank to her armpits. I was losing her.
Golden light flowed over us and thunder pealed as though a storm were breaking in the distance. Strength flowed into me and Makha spit out a final mouthful of sand and took a gurgling, rasping breath. Whatever Azyrin had done was working. Even I was ready to thank gods I didn’t care about and hardly believed in.
The witch shrieked but I didn’t dare take my attention off our champion. My arms and thighs throbbing with the effort, I dragged myself backward foot by squishy foot. Able to breathe again, Makha used her sword to help. The black sand grudgingly released its captive. She heaved free with a sucking pop and flailed until she was on her side. She lay there breathing in rough gasps but made no effort to rise.
I rolled to my feet, reaching muddy fingers for an arrow even as I stumbled to stand over the gasping fighter. She might be able to breathe again, but I had no illusions that she would be up and fighting soon.
The witch had drawn two curved daggers whose blades dripped sickly black with what I would bet a whole month of camp chores was poison. Azyrin stood firm, his eyes closed, his glowing sword held in front of him, keeping the light around us that had dispelled the witch’s evil. Drake danced with her, his rapier flashing in only to be parried by her blades.
