4. Cycle of fire
4
CYCLE OF FIRE
One didn’t need to be a native of the Deep to identify a targrove swamp as a place to avoid. If the jungles existed as places of exuberant, overabundant life, these swamps were their opposite. Little vegetation grew on the forest floor; what survived developed in ways both stunted and strange. Mushrooms and fungi had taken over spots left vacant by missing flora. Fumes filled the air, more than sufficient to make the eyes water and throat constrict, especially when combined with a second bitter, pungent aroma.
The trees themselves were offensively pretty: a violet dark enough to look black, the bark traced with a silvery sheen, the leaves a lighter violet-red. Their root systems were massive, intertwined monstrosities, often creating giant pits of rainbow-sheened water.
At the edge of the swamp, Naeron paused.
He wasn’t the first person in the column, but Ris seemed attuned to his movements. Naeron stopped, so Ris stopped, so everyone else stopped.
“What is it?” Ris asked the man.
His brows and mouth both wrinkled in concentration. He focused his attention on Anahrod. “Targrove?”
“Yes,” Anahrod said. There was no sense lying.
He nodded. “Thought so.”
Naeron continued walking.
They made much better time once Anahrod wasn’t trying to be in two places at once. Not that Anahrod found the experience pleasant, tainted as it was with acrid fumes, dark shadows, eerie silences. The whole swamp carried with it a strong sense of rejection, a spirit intolerant of outsiders and willing to make anyone’s trespass their last.
“The air here isn’t… poisonous… is it?” Gwydinion rubbed his watering eyes.
“We’re fine if we don’t linger,” Anahrod told him.
“In all these words of comfort and security,” Kaibren quoted, “lay not one stroke of truth-bound surety.” He pursed his lips as he stared at her.
“He means you didn’t say no,” Claw translated.
“True,” Anahrod agreed.
“Damn.” Claw eyed her. “Anyone ever say that you talk too much?”
“Only in bed,” she answered dryly, before adding, “Keep walking. This isn’t a good place to stop.”
“What place in the Deep ever is,” Ris muttered.
“No goal is too far for rough dreams and the regrets of old men, but by dying light of life or day is made slave to the necessities of the coming dark,” Kaibren commented.
Anahrod glanced sideways at him. He’d apparently found his voice, such as it was.
“He means it’s going to be too dark to see soon,” Claw translated. “What are we supposed to do then, light a torch?”
“ No .” Naeron’s refusal was emphatic.
“No fires,” Anahrod added. “Under any circumstances.”
“Is that a cave?” Claw pointed to a dark shadow under a vine-covered rock face. “We could—”
“No caves.” There wasn’t a cave in the entire Deep that didn’t have something living in it, but the rules changed in a targrove swamp. Here the risks involved fumes collecting in low spots until they starved out all the air and—in the case of this particular targrove swamp—a network of caves and tunnels crossing under the entire region, all leading to an underground river that fed straight to the Bay of Bones.
Unhelpful, as that led right back into Scarsea territory, never mind the ocean dangers, both beast and tidal. So Anahrod pointed to a tangle of knotted tree roots, barely visible in the gloaming light. “We’ll stop here. Rest and eat. Then we’ll continue. We can’t camp here.”
“Fine.” Ris sounded tired.
They were all tired. The Scarsea had forced them to march through the hottest part of the day, breathing air thick enough to bottle and warm enough to boil. Anahrod was miserable; she found herself envious of the Skylanders and their magically inscribed clothing.
She would have been the first to suggest sleeping in a targrove swamp if she considered it safe.
Kaibren dumped out his knapsack, so stuffed with various supplies that she wondered if it was some new form of folding box. He paused, looking frustrated, then began stuffing items back into the bag. Kaibren whispered something to Claw.
She scowled. “No torches? Or no fires under any circumstances? Kaibren’s good at shielding a flame.”
Naeron threw a rock. “No!”
In response, Kaibren threw his arms up in the air. The “what the hell” gesture needed no translation.
Anahrod sighed. She should’ve anticipated this. “No fires of any kind. No heat. No sparks. Just—” She patted the ground. “Feel the soil.”
Neither Ris nor Naeron bothered, but the others did.
“Why’s it so oily?” Gwydinion smeared the dark grit of the sticky black soil between his fingers.
“Targrove,” Naeron said, then more slowly, “ Tar .”
“It is oily,” Anahrod agreed. “And it’s everywhere. The soil, the water, the very air. This is why the Scarsea won’t follow us. In the Deep, fires burn hotter, but in a targrove swamp, the air itself can burn. There is no shielding a flame from that. One spark and this entire swamp goes up.”
Several of them gaped at her in shock. Kaibren blanched and then began tossing more supplies back into his knapsack. Anahrod nodded. Good. They were taking the threat seriously.
“That doesn’t make sense.” Gwydinion glared at her, as though she’d just told him a lie.
Anahrod raised an eyebrow.
“There must have been fires before,” the boy said. He spread out his arms. “If this all goes up every time there’s the smallest fire, how has the swamp survived at all?”
She chuckled. “These trees use fire for germination. Everything here is either resistant to fire or good at recovering from it. The swamp will survive.” She smiled. “But we won’t. Unless your clothes are inscribed to protect against this level of heat?”
Ris gave her a long, narrow-eyed look. “Is this detour about keeping the Scarsea from following us? Or keeping my dragon away?”
Anahrod pulled a piece of chena out of her bag and bit into it. She looked the other woman straight in her pretty green eyes and said, “Why would it keep your dragon away? You said your dragon doesn’t have a fire affinity.”
Anahrod was being disingenuous. There were a dozen elemental affinities besides fire that might start fires in a targrove swamp.
Claw gave Anahrod a nasty stare as well. “If this swamp goes up in flames, you’re here, too.”
Anahrod shrugged. That had been the entire point. She appreciated they were finally getting it.
“Don’t worry.” Ris batted away the concern with a motion of her hand. “I’ve already warned him off.” She pouted at Anahrod. “And anyway, my dragon doesn’t breathe fire.”
Anahrod waited a beat, but the woman showed no inclination to explain what her dragon breathed instead. Odd, in its way. Dragonriders were usually all over themselves to brag about whatever made their particular dragon so unique.
Anahrod turned to the boy. “The swamp has some virtues. Touch a root.” Anahrod demonstrated, laying her splayed hand flat against the dark gray bark.
“Why—” Gwydinion did so, mimicking Anahrod’s gesture. He blinked in surprise, snatched his hand back as if it had been scorched before he returned his palm to the surface a second time. “It’s cold!”
“Lean against a tree and cool off,” Anahrod said. “Eat something—” She paused as she heard a strange noise, off in the distance.
“What’s wrong?” Ris asked.
“Shh.” The noise was an odd, rippling kind of crackle. Faint, but growing louder.
She reached out to any animals she could sense. Animals lived in the targrove, despite appearances. Many animals, just of a different scale than the giant monsters elsewhere in the jungle. They were all very good at flying or running, or both.
Which they were all doing.
She felt a wave of emotion shudder through her. Fear and dread and a deep, bitter feeling of betrayal.
To think that Sicaryon would stoop so low…
No. It had to be a mistake, an accident. But did that really matter? The result was going to be the same.
Anahrod picked up her pack again. “Everyone up. Change of plans. It seems I misjudged the Scarsea response.”
“Wait, you don’t mean—” Gwydinion stared behind them in a panic. Not unjustified, to be fair.
“Yes,” Anahrod said grimly. “Someone’s started a fire.”