Child Of Storms (Volume 1) (52 page)

             
“Fear not, laddie,” Ironhelm said. “I can see just fine. Aye, tis true.”

             
Ronias whispered something quickly. Suddenly a dim light shone forth, Ronias holding a small dagger which glowed a gentle blue. All was shadowy and dim, but they could at least make out the outlines of the trees around them.

             
Ironhelm glanced nervously at the tree-tops.

             
“Worry not,” Ronias said. “The light is too dim for the dragon to see from above.”

             
“Have we lost them?” Flatfoot wondered.

             
“Aye, I think we have,” Ironhelm said. “But we should keep moving.”

             
“They’ll not be able to follow our scent through the water,” Willock said. “Besides, these are the Nor Marshes. They will not dare enter it.”

             
“Ach. They know better!” Ironhelm said.

             
“That could yet play to our advantage,” Willock mused.

             
“Surely you do not wish to stay in this hideous place?” Flatfoot asked.

             
“I do not wish it,” Ironhelm said. “But all other roads have been closed to us, laddie. We’ve no choice.”

             
“I understood that we would merely skirt along the edge of the marshes as we wound our way south,” the gnome protested.

             
“That damned dragon has chased us at least a mile into the marshes already,” Jorn said. “If we keep moving westward, we’ll cross the marshes entirely and be on the opposite side of the valley. We can approach the Teeth well out of the path of the enemy army.”

             
“Do we even bother with any of that?” Ronias said.

             
“What do you mean, elf?” Jorn said.

             
“I mean that the Cult apparently knows we are here,” Ronias said. “The mission has failed.”

             
“Grang’s ass it has!” Jorn shot back. “They know they just chased a scouting party of some kind into the marshes. That’s all they know.”

             
They kept on for about a half hour further before stopping near one of the few dry spots, a tiny island not fifty feet wide. Dismounting, they collapsed exhausted on the soft, mossy ground. Beyond the dim light of Ronias’ knife, all was inky blackness.

Twenty-Two

            
 
The Nor Marshes.

Flatfoot hated the very sound of it the first time he’d heard the name. Then he hated the look of it the first time he saw it from on high in the mountains. Now he hated its stench and its dankness, not to mention the swarms of insects.

              Flatfoot stood up, rubbing his aching shoulder and neck. He’d spent the last few hours of the night leaning against a tree, achieving only the most fitful and short-lived of sleeps. Even now, during the daylight hours, the light in the marshes was not unlike a sort of perpetual twilight. It was a horrible looking place, too, a locale about as far from the comfort and luxury of his study in Barter’s Crossing as he could imagine.

The marshes were a nightmarish tangle of immense trees, stagnant pools, streams of black water, and overhanging vines. A pale yellow mist hung about the surface of the water in places, as well as an eerie silence interrupted by the intermittent shrieks and cries of unseen creatures. A large, leathery-winged reptile flew by fifty yards away as a massive snake slithered down a tree. The entire place seemed alive, all manner of fungi and moss covering every branch and tree trunk.

              “This is a cursed place,” Ronias said. “Terrible magics were worked here once, long ago.”

             
“How do you know tha’, laddie?” Ironhelm said. The dwarf sat nearby, brooding and staring at the dark water next to the camp.

             
“I can feel it,” Ronias shrugged. “These marshes, they are not…natural.”

             
“That’s hardly reassuring,” Flatfoot said.

             
“I’ve heard tales of the Nor Marshes, yes,” Ronias said, scanning the treetops lost in thought. “Rumors of a terrible cataclysm which turned a once-pleasant valley into this. I cannot say it is merely fable, but…yes, there is a dark energy here. I can feel it.”

             
The others said nothing, peering warily into the wilderness all around them. They built a small fire next to their makeshift camp, Ronias casting a spell upon some damp branches causing them to burn. Then they roasted a large snake over the fire. Willock cut away a piece of the meat and tasted it. He pronounced it done and proceeded to carve it up for the others, a repulsed Flatfoot refusing to go anywhere near it. The others ate the snake, grimacing at the chewy meat in silence.

They took inventory. They still had the spit, a small pot, and a few tin plates, but almost nothing else. Flatfoot’s spices and seasonings, the larger pots, his mixing spoon, and his ladle were all were gone. Their tents were gone, too, burned up with the packhorse along with most of their salt pork and the other provisions. They still had two long lengths of dried sausage and half a wedge of dried cheese along with a dozen potatoes and four onions. There was barely enough ale to enjoy a final gulp for everyone over breakfast.

“No sense in saving it,” Jorn said, pouring out the ale into everyone’s cup and casting the jug aside. He sprinkled a little
flannae
into his own cup, swallowing down its bitter flavor silently. He tucked the little pouch back under his shirt where it hung from a thick string.

             
“There’s hardly enough food for two or even three days,” Ailric said. The knight’s armor was filthy and he looked miserable.

             
“We’ll stretch it,” Ironhelm grumbled. “Aye, we’ll make it work.”

             
“There’s bound to be food aplenty in the marshes,” Willock said.

             
“Not snake, I hope,” Flatfoot said. “I don’t know if I could ever get
that
hungry.”

             
“We’re lucky to be alive, after last night,” Willock said. “And we’ll have to eat what we can if we want to stay that way.”

             
“Then we’ll eat what we can find,” Jorn said, sipping his ale. “But first there is the question of what to do next. Do we cross the marshes?”

             
“We cross,” Willock said. “We don’t stand a chance back near the road, not with that dragon.”

             
“But once the army moves on, the way should be clear,” Flatfoot said.

             
“Who knows how long that might take?” Willock said. “If all goes well, we can cross the marshes in two or maybe three days. That puts us within a day’s march of the Teeth.”

             
“And then what?” Ailric said. “I’ve been thinking about it. If Amundágor’s armies are on the march, getting through the pass undetected will be impossible.”

             
“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Willock said. “Right now, I don’t see how we’ve any choice.”

             
“Ach. This was not the route I wanted to take,” Ironhelm said. He gazed up at the trees, taking another bite of the snake meat. He rather liked it, whatever the others thought about its culinary value. “We’d best keep our wits about us.”

             
“Hellish place,” Flatfoot said. “Lord Hammeredshield said some of these vines will strangle you if you pass too close.”

             
Jorn was the first to stand, swallowing the last of his piece of snake meat and drinking down his last gulp of ale.

“Then don’t pass too close,” he said. “Let’s be off. The sooner we get started, the sooner we get out. How I miss the forests of Linlund! They’re getting ready for the first snowfall there, I’m sure.”

              “I wonder where Braemorgan is right now,” Flatfoot said, missing his morning tea. “He’s likely to have arrived to broker peace between the kings by now. I’d wager he’s got better food than we do, being in the company of monarchs and such. I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the king of Shalfur is a renowned gourmet. It’s said he’s rather fond of roasted wild boar. Oh, and it would no doubt all be washed down with gallons of the best Shalfurian brandy. Then there are all those wonderful cheeses they make in Shalfur.”

             
“Grang’s teeth, Sal!” Jorn snapped. “Speak not of feasts.”

_____

             
Progress was brutal, even on horseback. The marshes were unrelenting, varying only between stinking flooded stretches that went on for miles followed by drier patches covered in thick undergrowth and knots of massive tree roots. Jorn and Ailric rode in front, hacking their way at the tangles of barbed vines blocking their path wherever they went. The party trudged forward all morning, seeming to make hardly any progress at all.

             
“We’ve not traveled three miles in as many hours,” Flatfoot moaned, trying to wave off a cloud of mosquitoes pestering him.

             
“Curse this place,” Ailric said, hacking through a clump of low-hanging vines. “We should’ve stood our ground and fought when we had the chance.”

             
Jorn laughed, chopping through a thick vine with his hand axe.

“Sure we should’ve,” he said. “You’d be roasted in that metal bucket you stumble around in. That thing flying around last night breathing fire, in case you didn’t understand, that was a dragon.”

              “Dragons are mortal.”

             
“Yes,” Jorn said. “And so are we.”

             
“Do I detect a note of fear in your words, Jorn?”

             
“Fear? Not of death, only of death before I get my revenge.”

             
The knight was silent, chopping another vine aside and leading his horse through the opening he created.

             
“For yourself above all, is it?” he said.

             
“No different than you, Knight of Havenwood,” Jorn said. “Tell me what you fight for, why don’t you? For the glory of your Order, I’m sure, not to mention yourself. Tell me this quest won’t help you advance in rank and increase your standing among the other knights.”

             
“Speak only for yourself,” Ailric said. “I believe in the righteousness of this endeavor.”

             
“Then prove your selflessness,” Jorn said. “Tell no one of this quest when it is done. Take a vow of secrecy right now. Never speak of your involvement in this endeavor, and demand the rest of us keep your secret. You’re not about to do that, are you? No, you might believe in the cause but that doesn’t stop you from hoping for a piece of the glory if we succeed, does it?”

_____

              They plodded ever forward, coming to a broad black stream across their path. Jorn pointed his horse towards it, the beast hesitating to step into the murkiness. He insisted, urging it forward. It waded in up to its belly, sloshing through the water nervously.

             
“What is it, boy?” Jorn whispered, patting the horse’s neck. “Come on, keep going. That’s it.”

Jorn reached the far side of the bank, followed by Ironhelm and Willock. Jorn kept moving along, chopping through yet another thick vine across his path. Behind him, the dwarf and the woodsman had just finished crossing the stream as Flatfoot and the knight were making their way through behind them. Ronias was still on the opposite shore, suddenly pulling up on his reigns just as his horse was about to step into the water. Ahead of him, he saw a surging mass rising in the water and caught a glimpse of something solid sliding towards the surface. Before the elf had a chance to shout a warning, a trio of black tentacles, each as thick as a man’s leg, sprung up from out of the water.

The tentacles attacked the knight’s horse with furious speed, seizing its legs and neck. The horse whinnied in panicked fear, bucking and struggling against the slimy tendrils trying to drag it down into the black water. Ailric kept his balance, crying out and drawing his sword. He slashed at the tentacle wrapped around his horse’s neck, hacking at it desperately. The blows cut into the tentacle deeply, a pink-yellow goo oozing from the monster’s wound, but the other tentacles tightened their grip and pulled the struggling horse downward.

More tentacles rose now from the water, eight in all, every one of them attached to the front of a long tubular body, black with streaks of bright red, which now emerged from the murkiness. From the center of the tentacles was a circular mouth lined with thousands of tiny teeth. The creature, twenty feet long including its tentacles, resembled some kind of giant half-squid, half-shark summoned up from the dark recesses of a fevered nightmare. One of the tentacles seized Ailric’s foot, pulling him towards the monster’s drooling mouth. Ailric hacked frantically at the tentacle, chopping right through it. A stream of the goo shot up from the severed appendage just like a fountain, spraying the knight. Ailric shifted his weight, about to slash again at the tentacle gripping his horse by the neck. Suddenly, the horse slid out from under him, dragged off its feet and pulled underwater. Ailric found himself underwater a moment later, slashing wildly with his sword as he found his feet and stood. Standing up to his chest in black water, he slashed the air around him wildly, a pair of tentacles still flailing about towards him even as the tentacles attacked Ailric, his poor horse was pulled forward towards the vile mouth. The creature’s powerful jaws clamped down on the horse’s neck and snapped it in two.

Flatfoot, meanwhile, had been thrown from his own pony when a stray tentacle lunged at him. The pony reared up in fear, sending Flatfoot falling backwards into the water. He swam frantically back to the shore as his pony fought against a single tentacle which had wrapped itself around one of its back legs. Just as Flatfoot reached the shore, gripping a thick root to pull himself out of the water, another tentacle seized him by the waist. Screaming, Flatfoot clutched the root with all his might as the tentacle begin to try and pull the gnome back into the water.

Jorn and Willock, turning at the first sound of the attack, grabbed their bows and fired arrows into the creature’s slimy backside. Very soon, a dozen arrows protruded from the monster’s back, trickles of chunky pink goo oozed down its sides
from each wound. The woodsman took careful aim at the tentacle grasping the gnome and fired. The arrow buried itself right in the center of the tentacle. The wounded tentacle eased its hold just enough to allow the gnome to hang on against its pull. Ailric surged forward towards Flatfoot, coming to the gnome’s rescue with a slash from his sword which severed the tentacle. Another stream of goo poured forth, the gnome once again free as the half-severed tentacle let go of his waist. Flatfoot pulled himself onto the shore, Ailric still struggling to make his way back to dry ground.

On the far side, Willock and Jorn continued firing arrows into the beast’s back. Ironhelm, his axe drawn, tried to charge through the water at the monster but Angala refused. Instead, she reared up and threw him. He came down hard, his back landing on a root. Grimacing in pain, the dwarf got up slowly. Angala bolted into the swamp, fleeing in abject terror from the hideous monster.

“Angala,” he bellowed. “No!”

Ronias also did battle with the monster, firing one of his balls of white-light energy it. It struck the creature square in the back, causing a massive twitching all down its entire length. Again Ronias fired, the monster lurching backwards and twitching frantically. It withdrew its tentacles and retreated back into the murkiness from which it had emerged, the water silent once again. Ailric pulled himself onto the bank and turned back towards the stream. He gripped his sword with both hands, his entire body trembling. Twenty feet downstream, the monster surged to the surface again as it dragged Flatfoot’s still-fleeing pony down under the water, the poor creature neighing in terror but unable to withstand the singular focus of the monster. Willock drew another arrow, hoping to aim it at the pony’s throat and spare it from torment, but the poor creature was dragged down before he ever had the chance.