Chapter Sixteen Odessa
Sixteen
Odessa
Evie gagged and plugged her nose. “It stinks.”
“Yes, it does.” I breathed through my mouth, but the odor was so powerful I could taste it on my tongue.
I inhaled. And heaved, slapping a hand over my mouth.
The smell permeated the valley before us, the scent so heavy it thickened the air as we rode toward the bogs.
My friend Samuel Hay had once told me that I’d never enjoy the sweet, spicy candy they made from crystalized cave ginger after smelling a bog. And oh, how he was right.
How were the paperman and his son? Were they still in Ellder? Had they survived the crux attack on the fortress?
After the death of his wife and the fire that had taken his home in Turah, Samuel had endured enough hardship. I hoped he’d found somewhere safe to wait out the migration. I hoped that someday our paths would cross again and I could tell him about this foul trek through a cave ginger bog.
“You’ll get used to the smell,” Sryker said as he rode beside us, seemingly unbothered by the stench of rotten flesh and rancid milk.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“You sound like Edda.” He chuckled. “She hates the bogs. But by nightfall, we’ll be through the thick of it.”
“Thank you for taking us.”
“That’s the tenth time you’ve thanked me this morning. You don’t need an eleventh. It’s no hardship. And it wouldn’t have been right to send you off alone.”
Maybe if I had more confidence in my abilities to keep Evie safe, I would have taken offense. But I’d take all the help I could get from people like Sryker and Edda and Wells if that meant getting through Ozarth.
If I focused on crossing one kingdom at a time, traveling the continent didn’t seem quite so daunting.
The bogs marked the middle of Ozarth. The swamps stretched through a valley that ran parallel with the Harrow River. This area was the only place in Calandra where cave ginger was grown. It thrived in these bogs that the alligasks called home.
While it certainly would have smelled better, traveling around the bogs was not without risks.
Sryker had warned me that the lush riverlands were crawling with tigercats and tarkin.
It would have added a week to our journey, and with the migration quickly approaching, a week seemed too precious to waste.
Cutting through the bogs was the shortest way across Ozarth and south to Laine.
One day with this stench seemed our best choice.
Edda had bid us farewell this morning after a hearty breakfast of boiled eggs and hard cheese. Their children had clung to Sryker’s legs, giggling as he shuffled outside, dragging them along. And his family had stood outside their home, waving as we rode away.
“Do you miss farming?” I asked Sryker.
“Not even a bit.” Sryker had once been a cave ginger farmer, but after he was attacked by an alligask, Edda had begged him to find another job. So he’d traded his farm for a small mercantile along the Harrow, where he sold supplies to travelers crossing on the ferries.
“Why do they call it cave ginger?” There was a note in one of Luella’s journals she’d made about the plant. Not a cave in sight. I smiled at the idea of her riding through these bogs, scribbling details about the bogs and monsters within.
“I’ve always wondered that myself.” Sryker shrugged. “I have no idea. Have you ever tried the candy?”
“It was a favorite.” Until now.
“And what about you, lass?” Sryker asked Evie. “Have you tasted it before?”
“My teacher gave me some once.” She scrunched up her nose. “It was spicy.”
“My kids don’t like it, either,” he said.
The ginger had a sharp flavor, a taste I hadn’t acquired until I was older.
“Dess?” Evie twisted to stare up at me, and the serious look in her eyes made my heart sink. I knew before she asked exactly what her question would be. “Where is Luella? Is she in the shades with Papa?”
As much as I wanted to say no, I couldn’t lie. “Yes, my love.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she whispered, “And Ranse?”
“No. He’s not in the shades.” If I had to believe that truth into existence, so be it. “We’re going to find him. I promise.”
She nodded, falling sideways into my chest.
I’d never heard Evie call Ransom by his nickname before, but it made sense. Zavier had called him Ranse.
She spoke the name low enough for only me to hear, just like she’d been taught. Just like she knew not to acknowledge Zavier as Papa. Like she knew never to tell anyone she was a Turan princess.
This girl was the keeper of too many secrets.
She buried her face in the arms I had wrapped around her middle and clung tight as she softly cried.
Sryker gave me a worried glance.
“It’s been a long journey. From Norcrest,” I added quickly.
With Evie’s blue starbursts, I hoped that people would think we were from Ozarth. If it meant they’d help us get through their kingdom, they could think anything they wanted.
“As we get into the bogs, keep that crossbow close.” Sryker pointed to the weapon he’d given me before we left the riverside today. “It won’t kill an alligask, but a bolt through an eye will slow it down.”
The end was secured to a leather strap that I’d looped around my torso, the crossbow dangling at my hip. But at his warning, I tucked it under my arm, took the pouch of extra bolts from my saddlebag, and handed them to Evie. “Can you be in charge of these?”
“Okay.” She wiped her face dry and nodded.
“That’s my brave little star.” I stroked her hair, then made sure Faze was tucked in his carrier in case we had to ride faster.
He’d been wiggling more than usual today, and twice I’d had to stop him from trying to squirm free.
“We’ll go single file through the bogs,” Sryker said as we approached a narrow, beaten trail that wound through the valley.
The grass was so thick I feared we’d never see an attack coming.
“Alligasks are not stealthy monsters,” he said, likely reading the worry on my face.
“You’ll hear the grass rustle and see it move.
In the water, they’re lightning fast. But on land, their legs are too short to give them much speed.
The fences slow them down, too. If you see a monster, just keep riding. ”
“All right.” I swallowed the rise of panic as he maneuvered in front of us, adjusting his own crossbow so it was easy to reach.
The smell got worse, but the fear of where we were headed pushed it out of mind as the fences came into view.
The dark, rusted posts were spaced closely together, the gaps as wide as my foot. They were taller than the grass but short enough that we could peer over the top to the bogs.
Countless small ponds filled the valley. They were surrounded by tufts of grass. Some were glassy enough to reflect the blue sky while others were covered in a haze of green algae.
A splash sounded beside us, and I jumped, searching the water for a monster, but all I saw were ripples.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end from the feeling of being watched. Hunted.
Evie’s body trembled.
“How is it harvested?” I asked Sryker, needing something to break the quiet. “The cave ginger?”
“We bring bait to the bogs, usually pigs or sheep.” He twisted to speak over his shoulder.
“It gives the alligasks something to hunt. Then we use a special rake to skim the ginger berries from the top. I was harvesting one day when an alligask came at the fence. It managed to break through a weak section and attacked. Daria’s luck was on my side. ”
“And now you wear its skin.”
“I do. It started as more of a trophy, and a reminder that I’d survived when most would have fallen. I was still farming then, and I noticed if I was in this coat, they didn’t pay me much attention.”
Exactly like the story in the journal.
There was a cart and horse stopped against a fence ahead. A man was quickly drawing a rake through a gap in the fence posts as a woman scooped the berries into baskets and loaded them into their cart.
Neither paid us any attention as we approached, too focused on their task.
The squeal of a pig rang out from where it was stuck in the mud in the next bog over. The bait.
Evie looked up to me, her eyes wide.
“Don’t look,” I said.
She twisted the other way just in time to miss the alligask.
The monster surged from the bog, unhinging its jaw to swallow the pig whole.
“By the mother.” They were enormous, larger than I’d expected. Out of the water, their bold hides were as bright as the overhead sun. But as it sank down in the water, giving its thick, long tail a swish, it vanished beneath the surface.
As we rode past, the water was already calming, concealing the monster lurking in its depths.
I tightened my grip on the crossbow.
Faze wriggled so hard he almost worked himself free of the carrier.
“What’s wrong?” I let the crossbow hang by its strap and lifted him up, checking his paws and belly to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
He bared his fangs and hissed, not at me but toward the water.
Lime green flashed at the corner of my eye an instant before a loud thwack and roar filled the air. An alligask slammed into the fence beside us, snarling and thrashing against the bars, trying to get free.
“Ride,” Sryker ordered, urging his horse into a gallop.
Freya jumped away from the monster, then took off, chasing after Sryker.
Except my feet weren’t set in the stirrups, and I wasn’t holding tight enough to the reins. In a blink, I lost the control I’d been clinging to for weeks.
I pitched sideways, sliding to the farthest edge of the saddle as I bounced hard, my head whipping back and forth.
Evie’s scream mingled with another roar from the alligask as it banged into the fence again.
Pain exploded through my muscles as I clung to Evie and the saddle horn, dragging myself into the seat.
Our bodies crashed together, jostling to the other side as we barely hung on and, somehow, managed not to fall.
But something had to give.
And that something was Faze.
He flew out of my hold, yelping as he hurtled to the ground.
“Faze!” Evie yelled, reaching for him.