Cursed Bones

chapter 27



Alexander appeared moments after she woke, groggy and disoriented.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “How’s Ayela?”

“Still asleep,” Hector said, “but it looks like her wounds are healing well.”

“What about the lizards?” Isabel asked.

“They’re lying in wait,” Alexander said, pointing out two different spots in the jungle. “One’s right over there and the other is there.”

“And the Regency?” Isabel asked.

“About an hour away,” Alexander said.

“Then they’ll be here before nightfall,” Isabel said. “This isn’t exactly the kind of ambush I had in mind.”

“The lizards might take care of them for us,” Hector said. “If we’re quiet and stay low, they may not see us.”

“I guess that’s all we really can do for now,” Isabel said. “Ayela won’t be able to move until tomorrow at the earliest. How far out are the Sin’Rath?”

“Still a day behind,” Alexander said.

“At least there’s that,” Isabel said.

“I’ll be watching until the Regency soldiers arrive,” Alexander said. “If the lizards kill them all, good enough, if not I’ll try and draw off those that remain. Try and get some rest while you wait. I’ll warn you just before they arrive.”

She smiled at him as he faded out of sight.

Isabel waited quietly, her shield firmly in place, while Ayela slept. Hector and Horace had concealed themselves as well as possible, lying on the broad branches of the banyan tree, trying to blend in with the growing shadows. Alexander had come a few minutes before to warn them of the approaching enemy soldiers, and was now unseen but watching.

Isabel held her breath when she heard the rustling coming through the brush in the early evening gloom. The first soldier entered the clearing cautiously, stopping and scanning the area a step from the brush line. When the woman saw the dead lizard, she froze in place, looking for any hint of a threat. After a moment, she signaled those following as she quietly, slowly drew her sword.

Several more women slipped into the clearing and spread out, looking for sign of their quarry. Two soldiers carefully examined the tracks and markings from the fight while the rest fanned out and formed a perimeter.

One soldier screamed, then vanished into the brush. Followed by another. The remaining soldiers fell back into a tight group, their shields and swords pointing out toward the jungle, haunted looks ghosting across their faces as they listened to their companions screaming in agony and terror. Then there was silence.

They waited, their tension palpable in the way they flinched at the slightest noise, their fear barely held in check.

“What was that?” one said.

“One of those,” another answered, motioning to the dead lizard.

“Do you think they got Lady Reishi?” yet another asked.

“There aren’t any bodies.”

“Maybe they dragged her off into the jungle.”

“What difference does it make?” another said. “We won’t make it through the night out in the open.”

“Over there!” one shouted, pointing toward the far edge of the clearing. Isabel looked down and saw herself crouching in the brush. Her image got up and raced off into the jungle.

“Stay together,” one of the soldiers said, motioning for the remains of the Regency platoon to give chase. Within a few moments, sounds of their movement through the jungle faded into the distance.

Isabel started breathing a little easier until a scream shattered the calm evening air, followed by another. Several minutes later, three women crashed through the jungle, stumbling back into the clearing.

“I don’t understand.”

“She just vanished.”

“At least we got one of those blasted lizards.”

“Yeah, and they got seven of us.”

Isabel almost felt sorry for them. She started casting her light-lance spell, but stopped when a blurry patch of air pounced on one of the women, pinning her to the ground, taking her head in its mouth and quickly snapping her neck. The other two attacked, stabbing the chameleon lizard in the side, fatally wounding it, then pressing their advantage, they stabbed it repeatedly until it lay lifeless and mutilated.

Bloody and alone, the two soldiers looked around frantically. Night was falling.

“What do we do now?”

“What else can we do? We go back and try to find the rest of our battalion.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until morning?”

“I’m not staying here,” she said, looking around the clearing at their dead companion and the two dead lizards. “This carrion is bound to draw scavengers.”

The first soldier nodded and they started for the brush line. Hector looked to Isabel; she shook her head slowly. A few moments after the soldiers slipped into the darkening jungle, Shadowfang leapt to the ground.

Ayela woke not long after. “Did I hear screaming?”

“It was nothing,” Isabel said. “Try to rest.”

Isabel stretched, trying to work the stiffness out of her back from sleeping in a tree. Dawn broke over an overcast sky, but it didn’t look like rain, a small thing that she reminded herself to be grateful for.

Ayela was nearly healed but still stiff and tender from her wounds, yet she was determined to press on. Then she saw the dead soldier. “What happened last night?” she asked, looking around warily.

“The soldiers arrived and the lizards killed them,” Isabel said.

“Most of them, anyway,” Hector said, looking at Shadowfang who was busy cleaning his face by licking his paw and rubbing it along his snout.

“They didn’t even notice us?” Ayela asked.

Isabel shook her head and said, “We had Alexander’s help.”

“I can’t believe I slept through the whole thing,” Ayela said.

“The healing potion we gave you has that effect on people,” Isabel said. Then she turned and looked at the dead chameleon lizards. “I wish we had time to skin them.”

“What for?” Horace asked.

“Remember Jack and his cloak?” Isabel said. “What do you think it was made out of?”

“Really?” Horace said, appraising the two dead lizards, then looking at his brother. “With a pair of cloaks like that, we’d be dangerous.”

“You’re already dangerous,” Isabel said. “Besides, we’d have to get the skins to Mage Gamaliel and he’d have to take the time to enchant them. We have more important things to do right now and I suspect he does too.”

“Pity,” Hector said. Horace nodded.

“I just hope we don’t run into any more of those things,” Ayela said, tenderly touching her nearly healed wound and grimacing.

“On that count, I agree,” Hector said.

“The swamp shouldn’t be far,” Horace said.

Isabel tipped her head back for a moment. “It’s a few hours that way. I see why they call it the gloaming swamp, the place is completely shrouded in mist. It won’t be easy to navigate in there.”

“Hopefully, Lord Reishi will provide us with guidance,” Horace said.

“I’m sure he’ll be there when we need him,” Isabel said, cinching down the straps on her pack.

They set out cautiously. The chameleon lizards had them all a little spooked. Isabel used her link with Slyder to guide their course and watch for any sign of danger while keeping Shadowfang out in front several dozen feet to meet any threat they might encounter. He had proven to be an invaluable ally in the jungle.

Ayela stepped up next to her while they walked.

“I think I understand what you said about surprise better now,” she said.

“Tell me,” Isabel said, taking on the mantle of teacher.

“When you were able to surprise the enemy, they fell quickly,” Ayela said. “When the chameleon lizards surprised us, we barely survived, or at least I barely survived. I always thought that battle was supposed to be like the stories I heard as a child around the campfire … until now.”

“And now?”

“It’s terrifying and it all happens so fast … then it’s just sad and ugly once it’s over.”

Isabel nodded. “Good, you’re starting to understand.”

They walked on for a time while Ayela thought about Isabel’s words. “Not all battles can be won by surprise,” she said.

“No, but surprise is just a small part of the lesson. Surprise is simply your enemy’s belief that they aren’t about to be attacked, thus they aren’t prepared and thus they’re at a sudden and often decisive disadvantage. The greater lesson is about belief.”

“Belief about what?” Ayela said, frowning.

“First, about your circumstances,” Isabel said. “Believing that your enemy is wounded when they’re actually feigning an injury, believing that you outnumber the enemy when they in fact have soldiers hidden from view, believing that an enemy is really an ally, believing that your enemy is more powerful or less powerful than they really are … these are all factors that can decide the day. The most important thing in any fight is knowledge, knowledge of yourself and knowledge of your enemy. If you accurately understand both your own capabilities and those of your enemy, you’ll carry the day because you’ll know how to use your strengths to exploit your enemy’s weaknesses.

“Second, and far more importantly, believing in the rightness of your cause will give you the strength to persevere even when it seems that all is lost. This is the greatest power of those who fight for the light—we’re on the right side and we know it.

“Those who ally themselves with the darkness are selfish and greedy, seeking power and dominion over others for their own glory, but those qualities are inextricably linked with cowardice and an inability to trust others. Evil people can only lead through fear, intimidation, and deception, so their allies will inevitably betray them, either because they’re selfish and greedy themselves or because they’re secretly good and can’t stomach the wrong they’re being asked to do.

“Belief is the key to everything.”

“That’s a lot to think about,” Ayela said, falling back behind Isabel as they trudged through the jungle.

They reached the edge of the swamp about midday, solid ground abruptly giving way to algae-covered stagnant water. A pall of fog hung over the water, stretching out under the branches of sparsely spaced, ancient cypress trees, their trunks flaring just before they reached the water, looking like a hundred roots clustered together, all wrapped tightly with a single outer skin of bark.

Hector found a branch and reached out into the water, searching for solid ground under the thick, bright green algae.

“It’s only about two feet deep.”

“Right here at the edge,” Horace said. “There’s no telling how deep it gets farther in.”

“Or what’s in the water,” Ayela said. “It’s said that the black waters of the gloaming swamp are deadly.”

“We’d better get to work,” Isabel said.

It took the better part of the afternoon to build a small raft capable of supporting their weight. They found three relatively large limbs that had broken from nearby trees and used them for the base, lashing smaller branches in the eight-foot span between them, forming a platform. It wasn’t pretty and it was far too heavy to carry over much distance, but it floated even with the four of them aboard.

When it came time to push off, Shadowfang simply sat down at the edge of the water. Isabel smiled at her friend. She knew she could force him with her magic, but she also knew that it would take greater effort to control him and he would be far less useful within the confines of the swamp than he was in the jungle.

“Goodbye, Shadowfang,” she said, releasing him from her will as they shoved off into the murkiness. He roared once and disappeared into the jungle.

Hector and Horace used stout poles to propel the unwieldy raft through the water, leaving a trail of disturbed algae on the surface, marking their passage.

“That’s unfortunate,” Isabel said. “I was hoping we would vanish without a trace, as far as the enemy was concerned anyway.”

“Hopefully, the Regency won’t arrive until the algae has had a chance to cover our passage,” Hector said. “But I don’t think it matters much to the Sin’Rath.”

They poled their way through the mist until darkness started to fall.

“I haven’t seen a scrap of dirt big enough for a camp,” Horace said.

“Me neither,” Hector said.

“I guess we’re sleeping on the raft,” Isabel said. “How deep is the water?”

“Three to five feet,” said Hector.

“We should tie off to a tree for the night,” Isabel said.

“What was that?” Ayela asked, pointing off the side of the raft into the water.

“I didn’t see it,” Horace said.

“Looked like a snake to me,” Hector said. “And it was big.”

Isabel reached out with her mind and found it, imposing her will on the reptile and finding it to have a distinctly different, and quite distasteful, mind. At her command, it rose up out of the water, displaying itself to them.

It was glistening black, easily a foot thick in the body and probably twenty-five feet long. Its fangs looked long enough to pierce completely through a man’s forearm.

“Well, what shall we call you?” Isabel said.

“Ugly?” Ayela said under her breath.

“More like terrifying,” Hector said.

“How about Scales?” Isabel said. “Yes, I think I like that. Scales it is.”

“You aren’t really going to keep that thing around, are you?” Ayela asked.

“Of course,” Isabel said. “What better guard dog could we ask for in this place?”

The snake slipped back into the water, leaving only disturbed algae to prove it was ever there.

“Scales will stand guard, but we’ll all take our turn at watch as well,” Isabel said.

“I don’t like this place,” Ayela said. “I’m starting to understand why nobody returns from here. Without your magic, that snake could have easily taken one of us underwater and disappeared.”

“Probably,” Isabel said. “Unfortunately, this is the only way to get where we need to go. Hopefully, we won’t encounter anything more dangerous than a giant snake.”

Hector and Horace nodded, looking at each other.

Night fell, shrouding them in darkness so void of light, Isabel might have imagined that this was what the netherworld looked like … if she didn’t know better.

Ayela left her jar of glowing lichen with Horace, who drew first watch. The lichen didn’t provide much light, but it was enough to prevent them from accidentally stumbling off the raft into the murky water.

No one slept well. The swamp was eerie and foreboding, occasional sounds of small animals moving about were muted by the heavy mist hanging over everything like a burial shroud, only serving to make the sounds more haunting and forcing one to strain to hear what might be coming through the dark waters.

Isabel woke tired and irritable. It was impossible to tell what the weather looked like above the swamp. Within, it was a dull grey in every direction, limiting visibility to less than a hundred feet, the world beyond fading into the unknown.

“Well, at least we know the algae will cover our tracks,” Hector said, motioning to the uniformly green water as if presenting an act on a stage.

“Unfortunately, we also have no idea which way we came from or where we’re going,” Horace said.

Isabel tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Slyder was perched in the high branches at the top of the cypress tree they were tied to. She could see that the day was clear and bright above the swamp, the winter sun climbing gradually into the southern sky. Off in the distance, a craggy stone mountain jutted abruptly from the swamp, a lone high point in a sea of level green.

“We have to go that way,” Isabel pointed, her eyes still closed.

“That way it is,” Hector said, unlashing the raft from the tree trunk. As he and Horace shoved off, Scales broke the surface and started out ahead of them. Ayela shivered, but held her tongue.

It was cold under the cover of the fog and the air was so still, they left a wake of swirling eddies in the mist, momentarily marking their passage. Isabel guided them with Slyder’s help, keeping them moving in the general direction of the mountain. The algae covering every inch of the swamp gave way about midmorning, revealing inky black water that stank of rot and decay, but the thick mist persisted.

The water grew shallower, revealing patches of land covered in thick vegetation that obstructed their path. Isabel found herself relying on Slyder more and more to get her bearings as they wound through the confusing maze of passable waterways. By midafternoon the water grew so shallow and the vegetation so dense that they were spending more time working to free the raft from entanglements than they were moving forward … until they came to a place where they ran aground, the raft sinking into the thick mud and becoming stuck.

“Looks like we’re on foot for a while,” Isabel said.

Scales slithered out of the water, his tongue flicking the air.

“We should probably disassemble the raft and take the rope with us,” Hector said.

“I agree,” Isabel said. “There’s no telling how far this patch of high ground goes.”

It wasn’t long before they were trudging through the muck. The ground was coated with a thick layer of mud and the vegetation was dripping from the heavy blanket of fog. Isabel found her feet growing heavier by the step, mud caking to her boots. Within a few hundred feet, they all needed to stop to scrape their boots clean.

“We haven’t seen much life,” Horace said. “I’m starting to wonder if the biggest danger in this place is just disorientation.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Hector said.

“Nor I,” Ayela said. “I’ve heard stories of terrible monsters living within the gloaming swamp. Things that occasionally wander into the jungle to hunt before disappearing back into the mist with their prey.”

Their progress was slower on land than it had been by raft. The ground was riddled with pools of stagnant water, all of it black and cold. Late in the day, they came to a place where their path was blocked by a channel of water about twenty feet across.

“We could backtrack and see if there’s another way,” Horace suggested.

Isabel shook her head. “We’re still being pursued. I doubt the Regency soldiers have our trail anymore, but the Sin’Rath probably do and I’d rather avoid them if at all possible.”

“That looks pretty deep,” Hector said.

Scales slipped into the water and vanished, reemerging on the far side after a minute or so.

“Any predators down there would have probably taken issue with the snake,” Horace said.

“Maybe,” Ayela said. “Predators come in many sizes.”

“I can get across without getting wet,” Hector said. “Once I’m on the other side, toss me a rope and then tie it around your waists so I can help you cross.”

He transformed into vapor, floating gently and slowly across the surface of the water.

Horace tossed him a coil of rope and he tied it off to a nearby tree. Isabel, Ayela, and Horace then tied the rope around themselves, leaving a space of five or six feet between them. Isabel took a long branch and cleaned off the smaller branches to make a measuring pole.

A few feet into the water, it was almost three feet deep. Several more feet and it was almost five feet deep. She discarded the pole, shaking her head.

“Looks like we’re going to get soaked,” she said, carefully stepping into the water and inhaling sharply at the cold.

A few steps from the bank, she was up to her chest in the chill water. A few feet more and she was swimming, aided by Hector who kept tension on the rope. After all three of them were in the water, and Isabel was about halfway across, she felt a sharp pain on her leg, then another on her arm and another on her back. She started to flounder, fear gripping her as something unseen attacked her from under the murky water.

Hector saw her begin to panic and started pulling them toward the bank with all his strength. Each in turn started trying to ward off some unknown menace, adding to the difficulty of pulling them across the channel.

Isabel reached the shore first, scrambling out of the water in a frenzy to escape. Ayela was next, just as panicked, followed by Horace. Each in turn collapsed into the mud within a few steps.