5. Renard #2
It tilts its head, considering me. The longer it stares, the more it seems to settle into its form of me. Its mimic armor ripples softly—not metal, but obviously some sort of fleshy protuberance.
Staring in horror at this wrong version of me, I am struck by the absurd thought that I look older than the last time I crossed into these woods.
“Come on, then,” I say quietly, and the words are not bravado but invitation, because there is no retreating now without admitting that I should never have come.
It launches forward with terrible speed and a manic grin.
I barely get my sword up in time to catch the first strike, which lands with a force that jars my shoulders and sends a bright flare of pain down my spine.
The impact drives Magnar sideways, but his battle training takes hold and he waits for my command before he makes another move.
Gritting my teeth against all my legion discomforts, I release the reins and drop from the saddle rather than risk being pulled under him, landing hard enough that my knees buckle and I exhale a reflexive grunt.
The creature’s seam-mouth opens wider, the tendrils inside wiggling and snapping forward like worms crawling up from the soil after a rainstorm. It reaches for my face—my helm unhelpfully tied to my saddle—and I just manage to dodge as its claws kiss my cheek.
I lunge, aiming for its throat—my throat?—and the blade finds purchase in its wet, clay-dense flesh, sinking in with some resistance. The creature recoils, with a horrible screech, setting my teeth on edge and almost emptying my bowels.
It swipes again, catching my shoulder and spinning me half around.
I feel something tear beneath my armor—cloth, skin, pride—and stagger, vision narrowing at the edges.
The old reflex to stand taller, to meet force with greater force, flares instinctively, but my body does not answer as it once did.
My breath comes ragged—my arms shake. And gods, my damned knee nearly undoes my resolve with pain.
For a heartbeat, humiliatingly, I think of my bed. Of morning loaves of fresh bread on the kitchen table, next to a pot of pineberry preserves and fresh butter. Of a life where my greatest battle was coaxing reluctant seedlings from stubborn earth.
Then the creature makes a soft clicking noise from deep in its chest, its empty-eyed gaze searching for my many and varied weaknesses, and something harder and more determined settles into place beneath the weariness.
I am here because the people I swore a blood oath to protect are starving beneath a curse that no one understands, or deserves.
I am here to honor my old quest, and set my guilty memories and the troubled souls of my comrades to rest. I am here because a king I loved trusted me to guard his realm, and I failed him once. I will not fail twice.
I rush forward with a shout that scrapes my throat raw, bracing my boot against the crouched creature’s bent leg and wrenching the blade sideways with all the strength I have left.
My sword cleaves the creature in two, and its unseeing eyes blink at me for a single, horrifying second before it sinks to its knees.
Viscous black fluid seeps from its prone, ravaged form—reeking of bile and putrefying flesh.
The thing shudders violently, limbs thrashing in grotesque grace, before it finally sighs and stills.
I stand over it, swaying, chest heaving as the forest absorbs the sound of my breathing.
Staring down at the body—my body—I cannot help the thought that this is where I should be lying.
This should have been me all those years ago.
Perhaps the gods would have spared my family—and my men—as penance for my death, if I’d succumbed then.
Nothing else moves through the bushes or the trees, and it’s long moments before I’m able to come back to myself and check on Magnar.
He presses his muzzle briefly against my shoulder as though confirming I remain solid.
I rest my forehead against his for a moment longer than pride would prefer, drawing steadiness from the simple warmth of him.
There’s another sudden noise behind me and I whirl around, sword still sticky with this creature’s ichor, but there are no new threats.
The sound is the body sinking—not into a visible pit, but into the earth itself, as though the soil has opened unseen jaws.
Within minutes, there is no sign it stood there at all.
There is only our combat circle of churned leaves, and syrupy trails of my own blood darkening the path.
“I’m too old for this, my friend,” I mutter to Magnar, though we both know that isn’t the truth. I’m exactly the right age to understand what is at stake, and old enough to feel the cost of it in every bone, every sinew, every scar. Every pain a form of penance for all my failures.
The Verge stretches on ahead, deeper and darker, and somewhere beyond it the bog waits with its slow waters, living nightmares, and treacherous ground. Beyond that lies Hollowmire, where time slips sideways and men vanish without leaving even armor behind.
I wipe my blade clean, bind my shoulder as best I can, and gather what remains of my diminished supplies. I do not—I cannot—look back.
If something follows, it is welcome to try its hand again.
I cannot decide if it is luck that gives me the respite from whatever horrors continue to lurk in the dark here.
Perhaps my earlier fight with the mimicking thing has earned me a night off.
Or perhaps the forces within the verdant confines of the Verge are simply regrouping, waiting until I’m asleep to send their next tormenter.
Magnar is quiet—dare I say, peaceful—tonight. The small fire in my paltry camp crackles with just enough warmth to make me question my sanity, because it doesn’t seem to be as hot as a fire should be.
Or perhaps the cold simply bothers me more than it did when this life was all I dreamed of.
Embers drift upwards on a thin column of smoke, and my gaze follows them up toward the night sky—blacker than pitch, studded with stars in constellations I’d swear I’ve never seen before, different even from the ones I witnessed last night.
My gut twists with equal parts unease and hunger, and I finally relent and pull out a strip of dried fish from my pack, plus a heel of bread that something, clearly, has been nibbling on.
I’ve given up trying to catch the little snacking thief in the act.
Whatever it is, it’s too clever, quick, or powerful for me to pin down, and I don’t mind sharing a little of my evening meal with someone as long as I’m not meant to be the main course later on.
Hunger pains alleviated—though not abated entirely—I try to shift my pallet as close to the fire as I can without fearing a stray spark.
Sleep will only come in fits and starts, partly because of the cold, partly because of the hardness of the ground, and partly because of the readiness that has always and will always linger after a lifetime of battlefield terrors.
I wake often in the night, heart hammering, certain that something lurks just at the edge of darkness, only to find the fire reduced to a dull red eye and Magnar standing over me like a sentry carved from shadow.
Every time I close my eyes, I dream of water rising in a slow, deliberate swell that fills my mouth and lungs with cold, iron-tasting silt while unseen shapes move just beneath the surface, patient and ravenous.
When dawn finally begins to bleed into the forest, it does so reluctantly, the light seeping sideways between trunks in thin, lilac gray ribbons that illuminate the clinging mist and fog.
The fire has died to cold ash that doesn’t even offer to smolder.
My joints ache with age and the frosty cold, a persistent throb that reverberates throughout every bone in my body.
The bandage at my shoulder has stiffened with dried blood. My mouth tastes faintly metallic, as though I have been sucking on old coins in my sleep—perhaps one of the reasons for my visceral nightmares. Magnar turns his head when I stir, his dark eye finding mine with an unreadable expression.
“We’ve both made it through the night, I see,” I offer in a rough scrape of sound. “I wonder if we’ll have as much luck tomorrow night.”
Breaking camp takes longer than it should, given how slight my camp is—bedroll, needlessly banked fire, an apple for me and the core for Magnar.
My fingers are clumsy with cold and fatigue, and twice I have to force myself to stop and breathe rather than lash out at some imagined movement in the undergrowth.
This forest watches. I’ve known it since the first time I ventured in here with my men—each of us haughty with the assurance that we possessed whatever it took to best the threats it could send up. How gut-wrenchingly wrong we were.
Both Magnar and I are dragging with exhaustion, but we ride on, until the Verge thins before us.
One moment the trees stand close and oppressive, roots snaking across the path in knotted ridges and whorls meant to trip the careless, the next they draw back unevenly, as though they, too, fear what lies beyond the comfort of these shadows.
Dread crystallizes in my belly. The ground slopes subtly downward, and the air shifts, as though it is weighed down by the suggestion of open water.
I rein Magnar in at the edge, pulse tripping in my chest with a line of memories ready to sound off in my mind. I swore I’d never return to this place—this cursed, awful, stinking place—even to try and retrieve the bodies of my fallen brethren.
Before us sprawls the bog.