The Northern Approach (54 page)

“Then you are not responsible. You are not responsible for my death any more than you are for his. You only bear responsibility if you helped cause it.”

“In a sense—”

“Stop,” growled On’esquin. “You did not cause his death, you saw him through his last moments as his dearest friend. None of us had the ability to save him, thus sparing us from the blame of his death.

“Every person in this group made the choice to come along, Raeln. They know the risks and have faced death already in the past. They have no illusions that you will single-handedly spare them from Turessi’s wrath, any more than they believe the cities will rise up and help us. These four people are willing to die because they know it is the right thing to do and they have nothing else to return to. If they had anywhere else to be, do you think any of them would have accompanied us?

“I told you in the beginning that we were to be six, bound by loss. That loss may extend to us, as well. No amount of magic, skill, or determination can ensure that any of us will live another minute, let alone until we reach Dorralt’s doorstep. I have known this for centuries and you need to know it now. More importantly, you must accept it.”

Raeln’s tension eased, though not through relaxation. Knowing the person driving them ever northward did not think they had much chance was liberating in a way, easing some of the pressure on him to make everything work out. “Did you give that same speech to your troops in the last war?” Raeln asked, smiling despite himself.

“I did. In the end, nearly two-thirds of my troops had died, but we had every one of Dorralt’s generals crushed under our heel. It was a costly victory, but it was a victory. This will be much the same, I fear.”

“Was it worth the losses, knowing what you know now?”

“I believe it was, Raeln. Dorralt may have gotten free and repeated his war with much greater success, but we bought these people two millennia of relative peace. I would die a thousand times for something that beautiful. Once more is a small sacrifice to hope that I can do it again.”

“I wish I had your faith in us,” Raeln admitted. “I’m afraid of dying, even as I want to face my death once and for all.”

“We all fear death. Even I still fear it.”

Taking a deep breath, Raeln rolled his shoulders and struggled to relax. The frustrations and anger that had plagued him for months had begun to ease, knowing he was not responsible for everyone. He had heard it before from his own sister, Greth, and many others, but for once he listened. Such a small thing and it took such a weight off his shoulders.

“At least you found your six,” Raeln offered, chuckling. “That should be something.”

Smiling grimly, On’esquin replied, “It would be, I admit. Sadly, we are at five. In all the prophecies, I was mentioned separately. In this matter I must ask you something, Raeln.”

“What?”

“I ask that you swear that you will keep this next part to yourself.”

Raeln’s calm shattered, knowing something awful was coming. Nodding, he mumbled his agreement.

“I have read the prophecies a thousands upon thousands of times,” On’esquin told him, opening the rolled parchments and smiling sadly at them. “I am clearly mentioned every few verses for nearly the whole of the prophecy. Then, when the first mention of standing in Turessi occurs, I am never mentioned again. It is my belief that I will never lay eyes on my homeland again, Raeln. I accept this, but I am not ready for it. No person, mortal or god, is ready to face their own end. That alone is what I fear. I do not bear your burden of responsibility, but rather I bear the knowledge that I will die with my task incomplete. I have spent a great many years coming to grips with the idea that I must trust others to do what I cannot.”

Raeln stared in dismay at On’esquin as the man put away the prophecies. “You told us that they are not set in stone,” Raeln said quickly. “Nothing in there is absolute. They are just guides for what might help us. One possible way.”

On’esquin smiled and nodded. “I am very much aware,” he replied. “Now…you wish to relax and find the strength you once had, without the fear that makes you hesitate and make mistakes…”

For the next hour, On’esquin talked Raeln through the steps of relaxing before a battle. His methods and expectations were different from those of Raeln’s teachers, but the man had clearly faced the same struggle himself many times before. Soon Raeln managed to find a simple calm within himself that felt as refreshing as a week of sleep. Meditation that had eluded him since Greth’s death came at last, and with it, peace and acceptance of what was to come.

What might come
, he reminded himself.

*

The swamp was far larger than Raeln had expected, spanning miles. He had thought the watch shifts would last a few hours, with each person taking a turn resting, but he had believed that would bring them up to Jnodin’s gates after a single rest. After resting, he had spent a shift on the roof of the wagon, watching the speck in the distance behind them, and now sat alongside Dalania at the reins, with perhaps a quarter of the swamp still ahead of them.

“The horses fear this place,” Dalania announced, snapping Raeln out of his staring into the distance. “This place is more dangerous than we thought. You were right to have me remain awake. I can feel creatures out there, watching us. I can smell the poisons the infest everything here. This is not just nature being dangerous…this place has been made more lethal by something unnatural.”

Raeln sniffed, trying to pick out anything, but his sense of smell was dulled by the constant scent of decaying plants and mildew. He could tell there were animals out there, though identifying them through the other things his nose picked up was impossible, at least for him. Greth, he thought, would have been able to pick them out easily. “Keep them calm. It will be a long time before we can leave, and the longer we can keep them from spooking, the better.”

Dalania agreed, giving him a look that told him there were limits to what she could do for the animals. Still, she did not say it, which he appreciated.

Reaching back behind the seat of the wagon, Raeln picked up one of two canteens Yoska had left them, filled with water Feanne had gathered before getting far into the swamp. Uncorking it, he raised it to his mouth and stopped, smelling something a little off about it.

Almost immediately, Dalania stopped watching the path ahead and stared at the canteen, her brow crinkling as though she were trying to identify the same scent.

Raeln tilted the canteen, pouring a little of the water onto his hand. He could not see anything strange about it, but Greth had taught him to trust his instincts more than his rational mind when it came to matters of the wilds. Left to his own instincts, Raeln knew he would have avoided water that smelled like that.

“Have you had any water?” Raeln asked Dalania.

“No, though I likely will not need much in this area,” she said, looking back to the horses. “The air is moist and I can survive on that for some time. It is one of the benefits of being part plant.”

Raeln glanced at the vines and leaves that covered Dalania and noticed her skin had grown even more green than normal. In anyone else that would have concerned him, but for her it was likely a good sign.

“Yoska!” Raeln called out, and the gypsy’s head poked over the top of the wagon. “Did you drink any of this water?”

“We have wine still, why would I drink water?” the man replied, looking somewhat indignant. “If you question the water, we pour some alcohol in it to make it good, yes?”

“Did On’esquin?”

Yoska disappeared and Raeln could hear the two men talking. He came right back, saying, “He says that he did drink water. He also wishes me to remind you that he is bad gauge of whether there is issue with food or water, as he regularly has eaten mushrooms that would kill us. I tell him that he no longer may give advice on my cooking.”

“Check with Estin,” insisted Raeln. “I have a bad feeling about the water and want to make sure everyone’s okay. Call it a hunch.”

Swinging himself down off the roof and through the window in a smooth movement that Raeln would have expected of a human several decades younger, Yoska headed into the sleeping area where Estin and Feanne had bedded down.

“Raeln!” called Yoska a moment later. “Is not good! Come!”

Diving through the window, Raeln had to blink several times for his night vision to allow him to see more than silhouettes. Yoska was kneeling near Feanne, who had curled into a ball on the floor near the barrel of wine. Across from them, Estin was just starting to sit up, rubbing at his eyes.

“Estin, did you have any water from this canteen?” Raeln asked, and immediately Estin’s eyes went wide.

“No. I had some left in my canteen from before we reached the swamp,” the other wildling told him, hopping off the crate. Estin seemed confused but aware that something serious might be happening. “Feanne drank plenty on our last shift, though. I insisted she drink before she got sick from dehydration.”

Yoska nodded and kept a hand at Feanne’s neck as he said, “She is burning up. Fever from something in water, yes?”

Nearly bowling Raeln over in his haste, Estin leapt across the room to Feanne’s side and checked her. After a few seconds, he had Yoska help roll her over. Nearly limp, Feanne flopped onto her back and lay there with her eyes partially open and her swollen tongue hanging out, panting rapidly. Even in the low light, Raeln could see her pink tongue had turned black. Even her nose looked painfully dry.

“I smelled something in the water,” Raeln offered, handing the canteen to Estin when he reached for it. “Could be worms or some mold…”

“No, it’s much worse,” replied Estin after barely sniffing the canteen. Growling, he threw it out the window. “I recognize the scent. It’s a poison the Turessians used to kill the entire population of Altis. Judging by the results, I think it kills the victim in a few days and then makes them either rise as zombies or makes it easier to raise them.”

Raeln groaned and watched nervously as Estin continued to examine Feanne. After a moment, he added, “Estin. It does more than that. They used the same poison on my village. If anyone who has the poison in their system tries to use magic, they get sick very fast. Once their heart stops, they become one of the Turessians.”

Nodding in understanding, Estin closed his eyes and concentrated on Feanne.

“No magic, Estin,” Raeln warned. “I saw this first-hand. My sister was taken by it. Even if the magic comes from you, it could make things worse if it’s not exactly right. You could poison yourself.”

“I’m immune to it in small doses,” replied Estin, keeping his eyes shut tightly as he moved his hand from Feanne’s brow to her stomach, flinching occasionally as he found something. “I’ve had it once before and had to use every bit of magic at my disposal to get out of the city. It’s not the first time I’ve been exposed to poison, and aside from getting a little sick, it doesn’t do much to me.”

Sitting out of their way, Yoska noted, “Is a wildling thing. Some dwarves have same silly condition. Sounds nice and helpful until you try to drink with them. Even best gypsy hooch does almost nothing to these people.”

Raeln had never heard of such a thing, but realized he knew more than a few wolf wildlings from his village who always won at drinking contests. Idly he wondered it was a well-kept secret, even from him, that some of them could do that. Moreover, he wondered if that meant there might be a handful of survivors from the city of Hyeth. He could worry about that another time.

“She’s dying,” Estin announced at last, shaking his head and then punching the floorboards hard enough that Raeln saw blood running down his knuckles. “I can’t believe we could get this far and now she’s dying of poison. I can’t cure this. Maybe at my best, but not like this. I can probably keep her alive for a day or two, but her body never healed from being brought back. I’d worried about disease and never given a thought about other things that might put her at risk. Given that my magic is keeping her alive already, I would bet on her becoming a Turessian.”