by KM Merritt
“Wake up, we’re sinking!”
Talon sat up as swiftly as Vola had and was instantly on their feet.
Sorrel gasped, and in the process, sucked in a mouthful of water. She sputtered and choked, and her flailing woke up Lillie.
“What’s happening?” the wizard said, rubbing her eyes. Then she blinked down at her wet hands.
“Get up,” Vola yelled while she slapped Sorrel on the back. “Get out, we’re sinking.”
Lillie scrambled for the tent flap, but it was only as she reached for it that Vola realized that was where most of the water was coming from.
“No, wait!”
Too late, Lillie pulled back the tent flap and cried out as a wave of sludge and mud cascaded into the tent. The water level outside was much higher than in. In the back of her mind, Vola was impressed the cheap tent hadn’t just collapsed against the onslaught of the swamp, but the front of her mind was screaming, “we’re gonna drown in a tent! I don’t wanna drown in a tent!”
“Swim for it,” Vola said.
Talon was the first one out. They pushed through the rapidly rising mud and kicked out like a diver. Their booted feet disappeared in the torrent, and Vola could only hope that they’d managed to find clear air.
Vola tried to stand, but the canvas shifted and slid under her feet and she feared she was just pushing them further down.
“Now, Lillie!”
Lillie dove for the flap with a grimace and shoved at the mud. Vola set her shoulder against the wizard’s wide rump, giving her a good shove before her feet disappeared, too.
The muddy water reached Vola’s waist now, and she turned to see Sorrel clinging halfway up the tent pole to keep her head out of the water.
“I’ll give you a boost,” she said and grabbed the halfling around the middle.
“I can swim, you know,” Sorrel said indignantly.
“Then swim for your life.”
She shoved the halfling out of the flap with a squelch.
Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and followed.
She paddled like a dog and kicked her bare feet. The mud pressed into her on all sides, squeezing her chest, making her limbs and movements sluggish.
Two seconds out of the tent, she panicked, forgetting which way was up and which way was down. There was nothing firm beneath her feet, and there were no lights or bubbles to swim for.
She flailed.
Something sharp and strong closed around her wrist and she fought to grab hold of it. A tug yanked her arm free of the mud and hope surged through her, hot and wild. She kicked again, hard, and her head surfaced with a noisy slurp.
She sucked in air as whatever had hold of her pulled on her arm. For a split second she thought maybe the swamp monster had come to save her. But no, it was Gruff with his teeth latched around her wrist as he yanked her from the swamp like a giant chew toy.
She floundered onto dry land and blinked the mud out of her eyes. Sorrel and Lillie coughed from their hands and knees. Sorrel’s borrowed shirt hung from her thin frame and Lillie’s perfect hair hung in brown, dripping strings.
Talon stood next to them, hands on their hips, staring at the sinkhole they’d just escaped.
Vola concentrated on getting air in and out of her lungs as she stared. In and out. In and out.
A muddy pond, murky and bottomless stood where their campsite had been. Rising out of the very center was the peak of their sad tent.
“Oh my gods,” Lillie said. “We almost drowned in a tent.”
“It’s tides,” Talon said. “I’d bet anything. Ground that seems firm in the evening floods and goes all mushy in the middle of the night.” They looked over at Vola.
Vola shuddered and tried to push down the feeling that the swamp was trying to eat them.
The swamp beast stood beside a couple of trees, its tether broken. Over head, stars winked at them cheekily.
There was really only one thing for them to do in the middle of the night with their gear buried in mud. They dug. Carefully. They used what was left of the swamp monster’s lead rope as a lifeline, and Vola dove through mud and water—mostly mud—to reach the tent. Sorrel volunteered since she was the smallest but Vola overruled her as the strongest.
Lillie stood on the edge of the sinkhole with a brilliant bursting ball of light, illuminating the process. Sorrel took the recovered gear from Vola as she dove over and over into that dark pit. Talon laid the soaked gear out, hoping to dry it out enough to brush the mud off.
In the end, Vola found her chain mail shirt, Sorrel’s old clothes, Lillie’s spell book, and one and a half pairs of boots. Talon had slept in theirs. So now Vola was stuck with only one boot, and Sorrel had no sandals.
The food was gone. The tent was gone. The bedrolls were gone. Vola refused to give up until she’d found the weapons, but even though she recovered her sword and Sorrel’s staff, Talon’s bow was waterlogged and the quiver was a lost cause.
They raced against time. As the sun rose, the water stopped flowing into the sinkhole and the ground grew firmer and firmer. Vola finally pulled herself out with the last of her strength as the water turned to mud and the mud turned to ground.
They all sat beside the recovered gear, watching the peak of the tent slowly dry into position as the sun turned the sky pink and orange. Soon enough the ground was firm enough that Sorrel could walk over and kick the peak of the tent.
Then she collapsed on the ground and just sat. Vola, Lillie, and Talon watched.
That was where Henri found them. From the amount of light in the sky, Vola guessed it was nearly midmorning.
He stood between two trees and surveyed the scene, taking in their bedraggled and muddy appearances, the ruined gear lying in rows along the ground, and the top of the tent sticking up out of the mud.
Vola would have felt like a moron if there was room for anything in her besides exhaustion.
The swamp beast made a snuffling squeal and trotted up to Henri, laying its narrow head against his chest. Henri rubbed the foul beast between the ears, and it moaned with pleasure.
Then Henri planted his fists on his hips with a quirky grin that made Vola want to punch him.
“Looks like a lively night. Are we ready to leave yet?”
Sixteen
Just after noon, the five of them—plus one swamp beast—trudged up the side of the tor. The hill itself rose straight up from the swamp like a stick stuck in the mud. Or like the top of their tent from a puddle.
A treacherous trail wound around the tor, leading eventually to the ruins at the peak. Vola led the bedraggled group, her chain mail grating over top of her mud-encrusted shirt. Sorrel wore her tunic again, now stained with sap and algae and mud. Lillie had tied her hair into a muddy knot at the base of her neck, and Talon had slung their bow across their back and now carried their knives.
Henri brought up the rear, whistling through his teeth as the swamp beast trotted happily beside him.
At the top of the path, Vola slowed and waved the others into silence. Big, square-cut boulders and fallen masonry littered the steep incline around them as if the tower or fort on top of the tor had just given in to gravity and finally toppled over.
Vola squeezed behind a boulder. “Quietly. I don’t want anyone to know we’re here yet.” Especially since it looked like they might have beaten Braydon.
Lillie promptly sneezed.
“Shhh,” Sorrel said.
“I’m sorry,” Lillie whispered and wiped her streaming nose. “I think I’m allergic to whatever is growing on me.”
Ahead of them, walls tumbled across the path creating a maze of white stone glinting in the sunlight.
“Is this it?” Sorrel whispered by Vola’s shoulder as they crouched behind a block of stone. “The lair of the bad guy?”
Vola’s brow drew down in a heavy frown. After days of battling everything from carnivorous flowers to invisible assassins to the swamp itself, Vola was ready to kill this kidnapper and craw
l home. Rage clawed its way through the exhaustion, making her fists curl against the rough stone. Normally, the anger that simmered in the orc half of her was something she kept carefully tamed and controlled.
Today, she welcomed it. She’d never get through this fight without it. And it was going to be a good fight, she’d make sure of it.
“Expect more golems,” she said. “And spell casters. Maybe illusions. And keep an eye out for the prisoners. Hopefully, this is the end of the line, and we can all go home after this. Talon, Sorrel. How does the approach look? Can you guys go in from the sides to flank them?”
Sorrel poked her head over the boulder and squinted, but Talon shook their head. “Too exposed. We’d lose the element of surprise.”
Vola set her mouth in a hard line. “Straight up the middle, then.”
“Good,” Sorrel said. “Let’s end this.”
“I’m ready,” Lillie said.
Vola eyed her. “Whatever you do, just don’t hit us.”
Lillie glared.
“Gruff and I will go for the walls,” Talon said. “We’ll jump them when we hear fighting.”
“Henri, fill in as needed,” Vola said. “Go.”
“Don’t you mean charge?” Sorrel asked.
Vola growled and vaulted the stone that hid them, Sorrel a second behind her.
Yes, something inside her cried. It was good to be on the attack, finally.
Vola sprinted to the wall, around the end tumbled by weather and time, and fetched up with her back against the masonry. Too many walls, too maze-like. She couldn’t see. She had to listen.
Something shuffled on the other side of the wall, sounding like leather on stone. There was the shing of a blade being drawn.
Vola spared a glance at Sorrel to be sure she followed, then pushed herself off the wall.
She rushed around the corner, roaring at the top of her lungs, sword drawn back for a blow.
The battle cry of a war orc had never failed to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. And it didn’t fail now.
The bent figure on the other side of the wall shrieked and grabbed up a glass flask. Then she threw it against the ground where it shattered, sending glass shards skittering across the floor.
A billow of smoke rose from the scattered glass, and Vola charged headfirst into it.
She coughed and staggered, the smoke making her lungs burn and her eyes water. She swept her blade in an arc, trying to find the enemy, but it just swooshed through the air making the smoke eddy.
Somewhere behind her, Sorrel yelled and coughed and gagged, and Vola heard a bright clang as something struck the stone floor.
The black smoke cleared just enough Vola could make out a figure at the other end of the room. She held her breath this time as she charged.
About five feet away, Vola realized she was charging an old woman. She tried to stop and managed to trip over her own feet and run shoulder first into a crooked wall.
“Ouch.” She pushed herself upright and faced the woman as the cloud dissipated. “Where are the kidnappers?”
“What kidnappers?” she said, voice pitched to be heard for miles. “There aren’t any kidnappers here.”
“Then why did you attack us?”
The woman threw her arms in the air, making her patchwork dress swish. “You charged into my home, screaming and waving a sword around. What did you expect me to do?”
Vola dragged in deep breaths of clean air, pushing back the red that crowded her vision. “I’m sorry—”
“You should be sorry,” the woman shrieked. “Scaring the crap out of me like that.”
She straightened up with a sniff and tugged her dress straight. It was a patchwork of scraps sewn together with meticulous stitches. Blues and greens and browns arranged in an oddly pretty spiral. The woman wore her bright white hair in a long neat braid, a stark contrast to Vola’s black braid which had mud and twigs sticking out of it at the moment.
The last of the smoke cleared from the room, and Sorrel appeared, facing the wall, a dented copper basin rolling at her feet.
“How would you like it if I were to try to kill you?” the woman said.
“We’re not killing you—”
“Who are we not killing?” Lillie said, appearing around the same corner Vola and Sorrel had charged around a moment before.
“Me,” the old woman said. “Astrid, if anyone cares. You’re not killing Astrid.”
“Where are they?” Vola cried. “The townspeople. The kidnappers. The assassins.”
Sorrel gave Vola a quelling look and held out her free hand.
Vola grimaced and swiped her forehead with her sleeve. The rage still pulsed under her skin, tinging her vision red, and she concentrated on pushing it down.
Not now, she told it.
When?
I don’t know, but you’ll be the first to know.
“Astrid, we’re really very sorry,” Sorrel was saying. “We’re tracking down some missing people.”
“You see any townsfolk here? Or kidnappers? No. Now get out of my house.”
“Please, if we could just ask you some questions,” Sorrel said.
“No! I’m not dressed for company.”
Talon poked their head over the wall.
Vola fought the urge to retreat in the face of the woman’s hostility. “We’ve already apologized—”
“You think that half-assed ‘sorry’ makes it all better? I said get—”
“Is everything all right?” Henri said, stepping into the room.
“I—oh…” Astrid said, staring at Henri. She tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. “Er, hello.”
Henri’s eyes brightened, and he gave her a little nod. “Ma’am.”
Vola paced, letting the nervous energy play itself out. She needed to hit something but there was no one to hit.
Astrid’s eyes drifted from Henri to Vola and then to Sorrel. She sighed. “All right, what kidnappers are you all talking about?”
“There have been kidnappings in Water’s Edge,” Sorrel said. “Lord Arthorel pointed us here.”
“And you listened to him?” Astrid made a face. “Pfft, that man has been trying to get me off this land for years. He wants to sell it. He’s broke as an old brick layer’s back.”
Vola stopped pacing. “He lied to us?”
“Guess that depends on what he told you.”
“You don’t know anything about the kidnappings?”
“Nope.”
Then they’d been following the wrong lead the whole time. The stuffed rabbit hung limp and forlorn from Vola’s belt.
The kidnappers were still out there. And so were all the victims.
Vola’s legs went out from under her, and she collapsed against the wall.
Seventeen
“You might as well make yourselves at home,” Astrid said. “I was just making some tea.” She tilted her chin back to study Talon, who sat on top of her wall. “Would you like to come down, too? Or are you comfy up there?”
Talon’s hood shifted as if surprised. “I’m comfy.”
Astrid shrugged and bustled around the space which, now that Vola took a moment to glance around, was obviously her home.
Cozy rugs covered well-swept flagstones and handmade curtains hung from the crooked walls. The room was open to the sky, but Vola could see the appeal in that, too.
She rubbed her hands down her face. Gods, what were they supposed to do now?
Sorrel stepped across to stand beside her. “You all right?” she asked under her breath.
Vola straightened, the last of the rage-fueled energy draining from her limbs, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
“I’m fine,” she said. She had to be. Too many feelings crowded under her skin. She couldn’t handle them all at once so she shoved them aside and focused on Sorrel’s concerned expression and the domestic noises coming from the old woman.
Astrid reached for the mismatched teacups that lined one of her shelves, and Henri s
tepped forward to pull them down for her.
She gave him a sweet smile. “Why thank you, sir.”
“Henri,” Henri said.
“Sir Henri.”
He shook his head. “I train knights, I never claimed to be one.”
“I like you even better, then,” she said quietly.
Henri blushed to the roots of his hair.
Vola raised her eyebrows while Lillie hid a smile behind her hand.
“Sit,” Astrid said, indicating the solid table pushed up against the wall.
Vola bit her lip, noting the precisely made bed and well-swept floor. “Thank you for the offer, but I uh, don’t think we should.” She held out her arm so the mud crusting her shirt was clearly visible.
Astrid frowned at the mess. “That’s…surprisingly astute of you.”
Vola bristled. “Why? Because I’m an orc?”
Astrid raised her eyebrows. “No, because you’re a warrior. They don’t tend to care about my furniture. Pick a spot to rest your rump. Everything gets washed down any time it rains anyways.” She gestured to the open sky.
Vola sighed and planted herself directly on the floor. Astrid might not care about mud on the furniture, but Vola’s mother had raised her better.
“So Arthorel lied to us,” Talon said from their perch on the wall. Gruff must be around somewhere, but Vola hadn’t seen him since they’d charged in here.
“What exactly did he tell you?” Astrid said, handing a delicate cup to Vola and Sorrel each.
“We’re looking for evidence of strange magic. He told us about the lights that appear over the tor at night,” Vola said. “And we saw them our first night in the swamp.”
“Well, that part’s true enough.” Astrid settled herself at the edge of her bed. “But the lights are a sign of divine magic. Not mortal. A god’s weapon rested here for many years. Long enough for the divine to wear off a bit and stick around.”
“Maxim’s Warhammer!” Sorrel cried, leaping to her feet and splashing tea everywhere. “It’s here.”
“Was,” Astrid corrected, eyes narrowing on the puddles around Sorrel’s feet.
“What do you mean ‘was?’” Sorrel said. “Where did it go?”
