The Iron Palace (24 page)

After five days of wandering, Yim had begun to worry that she would never see the end of reeds. They rose higher than her head and hemmed her in on all sides. Usually she could see little farther than she could reach. When she encountered a rare stretch of open water, she gazed over it to see reeds extending to the horizon.

Yim had arrived at the Grey Fens on horse back; leaving it on foot was far more arduous. Not only had her mount possessed the advantages of height and speed, Yim had come to believe that her steed had been faerie charmed. Although the bog had claimed him in the end, Yim had always believed that the horse had purposefully sacrificed his life for her sake.
Neeg only took that shortcut because I was giving birth
. Otherwise, the horse had threaded a way through the fens without mishap.

Over the past days, Yim’s appreciation of that accomplishment had grown. Like Neeg, Yim had a talent for locating the driest ground. It involved feeling her way with bare feet and keenly observing her surroundings. But she quickly discovered that finding dry ground was not the same as finding one’s way. There were no direct routes within the Grey Fens, and firm ground often turned in the wrong direction or came to an abrupt end.

Observing the sky kept Yim from becoming totally disoriented, but the heavens gave no clue as to how to reach her destination. Yim had wandered far enough southward that she could no longer see any hites, but she had no idea how much farther she needed to go.
If I were a bird, maybe not far at all
. Nevertheless, Yim feared that she might continue wandering for days. That would prove a problem. Her water skin had gone dry days ago, forcing her to drink
bog water, and the pack that had been heavy with food was beginning to feel light.

Moreover, Yim had a new concern; she had begun to feel cool. The late summer sun made the vast wet expanse of reeds a muggy place, but the hot damp air had stopped affecting her. The change had been sudden, and it had occurred earlier in the morning. If the reeds had stirred, Yim would have thought the onset of her chill marked the coming of a storm. But every breath convinced her that there was no change in the air; it was in her.

The Devourer’s growing stronger
, thought Yim.
Somewhere, folk are being slaughtered
. The evil entity that had been quiescent within her for so long had been strengthened by violent death. While Yim had feared it would happen, she was still surprised when it did, for its suddenness was startling. First, there was a tiny shiver that she easily ignored. A short while passed, then there was a wave of cold. Moreover, the cold lingered. Yim imagined that the shiver was a single death and the cold was a massacre.
Is Froan already following in his father’s footsteps?
Yim was almost certain that he was. Lost in a bog, she felt more impotent than ever. All she could do was slog on and hope.

For days, the fens had seemed changeless; a lush expanse of reeds and smaller bog plants growing from wet ground that often wasn’t ground at all but a mat of decay floating over murky water. Yet whether the ground was sound or not, it all looked the same. The sounds changed little also. The rustle of stalks shaken by the wind and the squish following each step seldom ceased. Only the occasional birdcall provided variety. The monotony of her surroundings and the constant walking turned Yim’s thoughts inward. After a while, it seemed the past was more vivid than the present.

In Yim’s imagination, reeds gave way to mountain peaks, flinty ground, and alpine grass. She was a little girl, idly hopping from stone to stone. They formed a perfect
circle and in the center was a hut.
The Wise Woman’s hut
. Then Yim saw her new guardian coming out the door. Her hair was brown then, not white. Only the night before, Yim had told her about her vision, saying, “She who holds the Balance said I’m the Chosen.” When the Wise Woman approached, Yim stopped hopping from stone to stone. “Da says I’m to live with you. For how long?”

“A while,” replied the Wise Woman.

“Will you be my mother?”

“Nay. You need no mother.”

That was a strange reply and strange that I should recall it after so many winters
, thought Yim. She had always deemed the Wise Woman cold, but lately she had been rethinking that judgment.
How much did she know?
Yim didn’t believe in fate, for fate implied a lack of choice. Nevertheless, she believed that the goddess prepared paths that one might follow by choosing wisely. Yim wondered if she had done so, and concluded that if she had, she owed a debt to the one who had prepared her. Having nurtured a child, Yim realized the Wise Woman’s job couldn’t have been an easy one.
Readying a girl to bed Lord Bahl. It must have been a heartbreaking task
. For the first time, Yim felt sympathy for her guardian.

Then Yim wondered if she still retained any of the skills she had acquired under the Wise Woman’s tutelage. She had lost her ability to learn the sex of an unborn child. She hadn’t tried to raise a spirit since she had called forth Count Yaun’s victims, and she doubted that she still could.
Such skills are gifts from Karm
, Yim thought,
and I’ve been fouled by the Devourer
. Her new chill served as a reminder of that fact.

Yim ended the day’s trek uncertain if she was any closer to leaving the fens. She tried not to think of her ultimate goal for fear that she would lose heart. One step at a time was her plan, and she was sticking to it. As darkness fell, Yim searched for a dry place to spend the night. In the fens,
“dry” was a relative term, and she settled for a place that was merely damp as opposed to one where water welled up wherever she stepped. Having selected a spot, she cut down armfuls of reeds. Those she used to make a sleeping pad by piling the stalks in layers, with each layer running at a right angle to the one below. It was an old fensfolk trick for staying dry, and it often worked.

After the pad was assembled, she ate her evemeal; two strips of smoked goat, a crumbling piece of young cheese, and a raw faerie arrow root, all washed down with bog water. It was too dark for Yim to see the mold that was spreading over her rations, but she could taste it. After Yim ate, she lay back to watch the sky.

The stars reminded her of the night when she walked upon the silver trail to find Honus. The memory of it had grown so vivid that Yim was convinced that she was recalling a real—if inexplicable—event. When she relived brushing her hand against Honus’s face, she not only felt warmth but also the scratch of stubble. Each time she recalled the gesture, she relished the moment. It helped sustain her.

Thoughts of Froan sustained her also. She saw the evil within him as a separate entity. She loathed and feared it, but not her son.
His hard words and the blade on my throat weren’t his doing. Not truly
. Yim turned her thoughts from their last encounter to happier times. They had been abundant enough, and remembering them was pacifying. When Yim grew drowsy, her remembrances turned fanciful and Honus entered them. As she drifted off to sleep, she watched Froan and Honus work side by side. They were planting grapevines on a hillside. In her near-dream state, the pair seemed like father and son.

The morning of Yim’s sixth day of wandering in the fens began like the previous ones. The sky lightened. She rose, damp and chilled, to eat a meager dawnmeal. The mold
spreading over her rations was evident in daylight, but there was nothing she could do about it except eat larger portions and consume all her food before it spoiled. With that in mind, she rubbed the gray-green fuzz off another strip of meat and ate it. Afterward, she shouldered the pack and rose to continue her trek.

Froan ate his dawnmeal later and in far more comfortable surroundings. The fare was both tastier and more substantial than Yim’s, for there were ample leftovers from the feast. He dined in his cabin with Moli. Rest and a change of fortunes had improved her spirits, but her injuries obviously troubled her. It upset Froan to see her in pain. “We’ll weigh anchor this morning,” he said. “I hope to find you a healwife soon.”

“Is there no healer among yer men?”

“Yes, but he knows only rough soldier cures, nothing fine enough for a lady.”

Moli giggled. “A lady? Me?”

“Yes,” said Froan. “For that’s what you’ll be.”

“Ah’m but a peasant lass, caught by pirates and made their whore. Ah know nothin’ ’bout bein’ a lady.”

“And I know nothing about being a lord, so we’ll learn together.” Then he leaned across the tiny table to kiss Moli. Afterward, he rose. “I’ve business ashore.”

A short while later, Froan returned to the pirates’ former hideout with a squad of soldiers. Captain Wuulf advised arriving with the bodies of pirates dangling from the war boat’s masts to enhance the surprise attack on Midgeport. It would make them seem to be returning from their mission while drawing out the citizenry to gawk. Froan liked the idea, but mindful of Moli’s sensibilities, he planned to display only the corpses of her molesters. To select them, Froan had to view the aftermath of the slaughter he had ordered.

Froan thought that he was steeled for the sight, but the first body he encountered was that of the crewman kidnapped
from the cattle boat. His eyes were still open, and they seemed staring in horror at a woman dressed in peasant clothes. She appeared to have died seeking the comfort of his arms. Froan looked away, only to spy a toddler lying facedown in bloody water.
Such is the source of my power
, he thought. For a moment, he longed to turn from the path he was following. He wondered if it might still be possible. Then his thoughts turned cold.
Better to prey than be preyed upon
. Froan realized that he didn’t wish to abandon safety and comfort any more than to reveal to Moli all he’d done to obtain them.

Y
IM WANDERED
two more days before she began to encounter sporadic clumps of trees that sprouted from small patches of dry ground within the bog. That evening, she spent the night on one such patch. Able to light a fire, she singed the mold off her remaining strips of meat. The cheese had become inedible, and the roots were gone, so Yim augmented her rations with legs from frogs that she caught and roasted.

The following day, Yim came across further signs that she was nearing the edge of the fens. The ground was firmer, and the firm stretches extended for ever greater distances. The reeds didn’t grow as high, allowing her to see into the distance. Nonetheless, treacherous ground still prevented her from traveling a direct route. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that reeds gave way to grass and the ground became solid. Then, tired as she was, Yim ran for joy awhile before
falling to the earth, gasping for breath and laughing at the same time. The Grey Fens were behind her.

Yim eventually rose and resumed walking. It felt strange to travel in a straight line, and she found herself testing her footing with each step. It had become second nature to suspect the ground beneath her feet, and even knowledge that it was solid couldn’t overcome the long habit.

If the footing was secure beyond the fens, it was the sole security Yim had. The bog’s treacherous ground had made it safe in other ways. While Yim no longer had to worry that her next step might plunge through seemingly dry turf, neither did soldiers, bandits, or slavers. It had been a long time since Yim had felt vulnerable and endangered when traveling alone, but those feelings returned to her.
The world hasn’t changed in my absence
. She lacked protection in a place where lone women often faced enslavement or worse.

Yim tried to recall her journey north to the Grey Fens, but it was hazy to her, for she had been feverish most of the time. She remembered that Honus had called the territory south of the Grey Fens the Empty Lands, although he said that some folk still dwelt there. Yim suspected that she had encountered no one on her trip north because Neeg had avoided settlements. On her current journey to Bahland, that wouldn’t be an option. Yim was nearly out of food. Moreover, she would need news and directions. The risks seemed both substantial and unavoidable.

Before I worry over approaching strangers, I’ll have to find some first
, thought Yim. It didn’t seem that would happen soon. The land beyond the fens appeared fittingly named. It was a flat and desolate expanse of grass that extended to the horizon without any sign of human habitation. The monotony of the view was broken only by occasional clumps of trees. Using the sun to determine the southward route, Yim headed in that direction.

The sun was low in the sky when Yim felt the first chill. Unlike before, there was but a moment before she felt the second one. More followed in such rapid succession that they blended together into a wave of cold that was spiritual as well as physical. Yim knew that people were dying somewhere in a manner the fed the darkness within her. The air seemed alive with screams that Yim felt but didn’t hear. Something foul was relishing each one. Yim was certain that her son was orchestrating another slaughter and each death strengthened the thing that was poisoning him.

It was poisoning her also. Yim felt polluted and sick at heart. It was especially disturbing to be defenseless against the invisible assault. The massacre that fueled it was likely far away, though she had no means of telling. All she could do was endure its effects, knowing they would linger. Discouraged by the prospect, Yim headed for a tiny grove of trees where she could rest and find wood for a fire.

By dusk it was over. Midgeport had been overwhelmed. Captain Wuulf strode its blood-spattered streets to ensure the looting was done efficiently. After the preceding chaos, he took comfort from the rationality of theft. The attack had been anything but rational. In his entire career as a mercenary, Wuulf had never seen its like.

Thinking back, Wuulf realized that it had begun belowdecks after Shadow ordered the oarsmen unchained. They were a rough bunch sentenced to hard labor more to save the cost of wages than to serve justice. Most were petty criminals and troublemakers. Some were just unlucky. All bore a grudge. Wuulf had been concerned that they would turn on Shadow at the first opportunity, but he needn’t have worried. The men had been in Shadow’s palm from the instant he spoke to them.