Chapter 20
They reached the swamp by midday. Fog covered the sodden ground.
A storm simmered to the south. She had no idea which way his men had gone.
There was no way to follow a trail through this mess.
The swamp ate all of the tracks almost as soon as they were made.
There was nothing for it but to go through and see if they could find them again on the other side.
They should be clear of it by now. It hadn’t taken this long to reach the other side when she’d come this way with Toby.
But here they were hours in with no end in sight, just surrounded by boggy ground and stagnant water and the smell of rotting vegetation.
The only trees nearby were the ones the swamp had claimed and killed. They wouldn’t be telling her anything.
The storm sweeping past to the south worried her. She could hear the slow rumble of thunder in the far distance. It was beginning to grow dark even though they were hours yet from sunset.
The only thing that could make this day better was a lightning storm—which, given that she was knee-deep in swamp water, seemed like an excellent possibility.
Thunder rumbled again and Casrian looked up at the sky. At least, he looked in the direction the sky should be. The fog was a sickly yellow that made it feel like they were cut off from the rest of the world. It thickened with every step.
“We have to get out of the water before that storm reaches us,” he said, as if she didn’t know that already.
“Not much farther.” She’d said the same thing an hour ago.
It shouldn’t be much farther. Unless the path had changed. Or the swamp had expanded in the years since she’d been here last. Or she’d gotten turned around in the fog.
Casrian swore under his breath. “For God’s sake, Rowan. Just tell me if you’re lost.”
“I’m not lost.”
She never got lost in the woods. It was insulting that he kept asking.
“If we backtrack to solid ground, we can wait for this storm to pass and go around.”
She shot him a glare over her shoulder. “There is no going around the swamp if we want to find your men before they reach the fort. This is the quickest way through.”
He pulled his gaze away from the lightning streaking across the purple sky to the south and down to the murky water. “It’s not worth the shortcut if we die out here.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’ll get us across.”
Turning her attention back to the nonexistent path, she led Copper forward.
She’d had to dismount a while ago when they’d hit a stretch of boggy ground.
It was too hard to see where she was going from the saddle.
She’d found a long branch and prodded the path ahead of her to find the firmest soil. It was slow going.
Her feet were freezing. She’d taken off her boots and rolled up her pants when she dismounted even though the captain had protested.
His boots might have offered him some protection in the swamp, but hers would not.
They would, however, keep her feet warm tonight if they stayed dry and if she managed to get them out of the swamp before the storm hit.
She squelched through the sludge, the mud pulling at her feet as she led the way. She didn’t want to risk injuring the horses by riding them into mud that was too deep.
Her foot slipped and she stumbled. Foul water splashed onto her breeches. She caught her balance and pressed on.
With her next step, something cold locked around her ankle and jerked her down hard. She cried out, dropping to her knees.
“Rowan,” Casrian said sharply. “What is it?”
She couldn’t answer him. The thing that had her was pulling her off the firmer ground and into deeper water.
Her hip wrenched as she tried to climb to her feet.
She drove the end of her walking stick into the water near her foot.
Something moved through the dark water, glossy as a fish, black as a serpent.
What the hell was it?
She struck something solid and hit it again, harder. Behind her, she heard the slick metallic sound of Casrian drawing his sword. Her knife was in her boot, tied to the saddle.
Fuck.
Her leg turned, forcing her body to rotate with it. She just kept her mouth out of the foul water as she twisted around. The grip on her ankle tightened, coiling around her calf to the knee.
There was a splash near her head. She looked up to find Casrian standing above her. “Use your leg to pull it closer, out of the water if you can. I can’t see shit.”
“It’s too strong,” she gasped out. It was all she could do to hold her ground, and she was losing that battle.
One hand clung to the walking stick as her only weapon.
The other was digging into the mud, clawing for purchase.
She was elbow-deep in loose muck. Her entire body was soaked and she was slowly being pulled deeper into the water.
Casrian waded out to her extended leg. Whatever the hell he saw there had him cursing like a sailor.
Not reassuring. The witch hunter liked to chide her about her language.
He didn’t often curse himself. Anything that made him swear like that had to be scary as hell.
The thing turned her leg again, sharply, and she was suddenly sitting in the muck.
Before it could pull her under, she grabbed the stick with both hands and shoved it down to her ankle, wedged the tip between her leg and the thing and tried to pry herself free.
Casrian swung his blade down, far too close to her submerged foot for comfort.
The thing holding her leg flinched but its grip didn’t loosen.
She dug deeper with the stick. The wood scraped her skin raw but she decided the pain was worth it when she managed to slide some of her leg free before the thing clamped down on her again.
It had to be some kind of serpent. The river feeding the swamp came down from the mountains through doomed Caetris. Maybe this was something that had slithered out of a cave there and made itself a new home here in the spreading rot.
Like the bear and the wolves and the moths.
All of them creeping across the border, stretching dirty fingers into her woods.
For the first time, she understood something of what drove the witch hunter. Someone had to stop this.
The witch hunter’s back was to her. He was slicing away at something beneath the water.
His body blocked her view. His sword came down and the thing holding her leg thrashed.
It twisted and her whole body flipped like it was nothing but dead weight attached to her leg.
Her startled cry was cut off when her face splashed down into brackish water.
She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes tight, not wanting any of it inside her.
She hadn’t had time to draw a breath before she went under.
Her lungs started to burn. She pushed at the mud, trying to get enough leverage to break her head above the water.
Her leg twisted again and then she was pulled fully under.
She’d lost her walking stick. Her arms flailed, but there was nothing to grab.
She was going to drown. She was going to drown in less than three feet of foul water. For two hundred cord. All because she felt bad for the witch hunter and his men and the woods.
Just as she thought she couldn’t last another second without a breath, her leg slipped free.
She dragged her feet under her and pushed against the muddy bottom of the swamp, breaking free of the water and dragging air into her lungs with great gulping gasps.
A hard hand wrapped around her arm, and she began to struggle until she realized it was the witch hunter.
He hauled her back to the horses, his blue eyes blazing with that bright light that kind of scared her.
The violent ruthless part of him he usually kept tucked away behind the shiny uniform.
It was probably the same expression witches saw right before he lopped off their heads.
He sheathed his sword and pushed her onto Copper’s back. He slapped the horse’s flank to get him moving and shouted at her, “Get out of the water.”
And it was all she could do to hold on as Copper valiantly pushed through the shoulder-high water on a direct path through the swamp.
She clung to his neck as he reached firmer ground and from that vantage point she could just make out a dark shape against the fog.
Trees. There were trees ahead. She could feel them again. Thank God.
She risked a glance over her shoulder to see the witch hunter already on Kenzi’s back, his sword back in his hand. He was close behind her, scanning the water as if he’d be able to see anything through the murk.
She directed Copper slightly off course, moving him to the left where the ground seemed firmer. There was a difference in the way the wind crossed deep water versus shallow, and she thought she could see the path through.
Another dozen paces, and she let out a breath when Copper’s hooves met the resistance of firmer ground. She urged Copper up, out of the water, onto relatively dry land. The water here only came up to his knees anyway and he picked up his pace.
They’d nearly reached the edge of the swamp when the sky opened with a clap of thunder and a heavy downpour.
“Do you have oilcloth?” Casrian shouted.
“No.” The contents of her saddlebag were woefully deficient compared to his. “I don’t need any.”
The rain was cold but she’d been dunked in a swamp and was covered in filth. Her whole body itched with it. She hoped she was soaked with rain. She hoped she was soaked to the skin.
He pulled up next to her. He’d shoved a wide-brimmed hat onto his head and wrapped an oilcloth around his shoulders to keep off the rain. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Just wet.”
She didn’t think she was hurt. It was hard to tell, honestly. Her whole body was shaking from the cold and the rush of terror. Everything seemed to be working, though.