Five Lands Saga Box Set 1 (Five Lands Saga Box Sets), page 63
Mah Ein.
Raw flesh.
Dak lakken.
Close now.
Tinadallen.
All mine.
As they hurried back, Daniella’s feet squelched through a low point in the high ground, and her mind shuttled through all the tales she’d read about these cursed creatures who emerged out of the very mud to flay their pray alive.
Nichtees.
Gods, what else could they be?
As they reached a clearing near a pond where they’d recently stopped for water, all noise stopped, and the first of the creatures stepped out from the hidden shadows into the border of the torchlight. The Nichtee crouched low, the outline of its figure almost human, dark hair hanging in long, matted clumps from its head. The resemblance, however, ended there. Its face was dominated by two immense, unblinking eyes, globes that shone orange in the light’s reflection. The nose and fanged mouth had fused into something that resembled a snout, protruding slightly from flaps of skin on its cheeks. One arm swirled lazily in a pool of water as it watched them, and it brought the hand up to pass in front of its face, as if smelling their imprint in the marsh. The hand had three wicked claws in the place of fingers.
“Asssshhhhha,” it hissed at them. Daniella stood petrified at the sight.
Jaeme lunged forward at it, but the Nichtee slid to the side with astonishing speed. Sayvil swore behind her. Daniella whirled around and saw what she was swearing at—dozens of faces emerging from the foliage, huge eyes and fangs surrounding them, coming to collect on their bounty. They seemed to be cooperating, even after arguing over them. Daniella wondered with horror if they’d come to some agreement.
Or if they’d only been making idle chatter while they guided the three of them here, to the wet battle ground beneath the dark canopy, where they would have a distinct advantage. Not even a single glint of moonlight penetrated the darkness.
In the flickering light of the torches, Daniella saw a group of dark forms lunge through the air and land on Jaeme. He let out one solitary choked cry and slashed with his sword, but the force of the creature knocked him down into the water along with them.
“Jaeme!” Daniella screamed, at the sight of the bodies thrashing in the water, Jaeme trapped and flailing under the Nichtees. She shoved her torch forward just as one of the foul faces turned up towards her, fangs snapping. It jumped back with a hiss of pain or fear as the torchlight burned brightly in its eyes, which still did not blink.
Could not blink.
Daniella swung the torch in a wide arc, halting them for the barest of seconds as the low flames sputtered briefly.
“Stay back!” she shouted in Old Foroclaean, swinging the torch around again. One of the creatures sank a clawed hand into the marsh and flung mud at Daniella, which hissed as it hit the torch. Sayvil cried out as a creature attacked, pushing her down splashing into the mud with it.
Daniella whirled around and thrust her torch at the head of the creature, who shrieked, clawing at its face as it fell backwards. Sayvil lifted herself up, sputtering, as Daniella dove at the one still thrashing on Jaeme. The torch connected hard with the head of the Nichtee, who swiped back at her with its long claws. The torch hit the water with a sickening sizzle, and the world plunged into terrifying darkness.
With the fear of the torches gone, the rest of the Nichtees wasted no time. Within the space of one heartbeat, she felt the hard blow of one of them jumping against her, knocking her into the pond. She sucked in the thick sludge as knife-sharp pain sliced through her leg and arm, the heavy creatures like boulders forcing her into the mud. With a last frantic effort, she dug forward to free her arms and connected with something heavy lying still beside her. Jaeme.
The muddy water burned her lungs. Her head was swimming, and the feeling of spiders skittered under her skin, that terrible, familiar hate seeping in—
And then there was a silver light, so bright it burned through her closed eyes, filling the bracken water with a flaming luminescence.
The moon had finally peered through the clouds.
The weight on her back was suddenly gone, and the skittering spider-feeling vanished. She pushed herself up, her head ringing, her lungs stinging, coughing out the vestiges of swamp in her mouth and throat. As she pulled her head out of the water, she heard curdling screams and splashes from the creatures escaping blindly into the dark of the swamp.
Daniella could barely open her eyes, through which she could still see that the clearing was glowing. She forced her eyes open and immediately saw the reason.
Sayvil stood directly under the tiny patch of moonlight that had filtered in through the dense overhang of leaves. Her arms hung loosely at her side, her head tilted back as if absorbing the stripe of her goddess’s light.
It was eerily beautiful, and it threatened to transfix Daniella with a kind of dreamy fascination until a second later when she remembered Jaeme and lunged forward into the marsh. She found him easily, as she had been shoved down practically on top of him, and with a reserve of strength she didn’t think she had in her anymore, pulled the upper half of his body out of the water.
Sayvil’s light faded, and they plunged into the black.
“Sayvil!” Daniella called. “Help me.”
There was another flash of moonlight, which prevented Daniella’s eyes from adjusting. She focused on holding Jaeme up out of the water as he sputtered and retched out swallowed sludge. Daniella clung to him. He groaned, raising a hand to his forehead.
With another flash of light, Daniella saw with horror that much of what she’d taken for mud was actually blood, smeared across Jaeme’s face, but she couldn’t tell what the source of it was.
Daniella tried to listen over his sputtering and Sayvil’s rustling amidst the intermittent flashes of light, but she didn’t hear sounds of the creatures returning.
Finally, Jaeme spoke. “They’re everywhere,” he moaned. “Dani . . .”
“Jaeme, I’m here, it’s—” she started, but was interrupted by a familiar clinking sound, and then one of Sayvil’s reeds glowed with flame. As the initial spark died down, the light grew dim compared to the bright flashes of moonlight.
“It’s all right, Jaeme. We’re all right.” Daniella tried rather unsuccessfully to keep her voice soothing as she wiped his face to find the wound. Jaeme’s only response was another groan. He leaned his head back. She grabbed him around the waist and pulled upward with all the power left in her sapped muscles, letting out a loud groan of her own under his water-logged weight. Her leg and left arm burned, and she remembered the pain when the Nichtees attacked. She couldn’t allow herself to imagine what kind of wounds they were, couldn’t dwell on them.
I can’t lose him.
I love him, and I can’t lose him.
That realization struck her so hard her knees went weak. But then Jaeme started to slip forward, and she propped herself up, her feet sinking deeper into the mud. There was no time to think about feelings now, only survival.
Sayvil drew closer. “I think they’re gone,” she said. “Let me help you.” She wrapped one of Jaeme’s arms over her shoulders and helped Daniella lift. They took a step forward, dragging him with them. Then another, both of them shaking with the effort.
The next time, Jaeme took a step forward as well. And another.
Daniella continued, hope brimming anew as his weight shifted more and more onto his own feet, although he continued to lean on them. But it was bearable. Daniella gritted her teeth. She was going to get them out of this filthy swamp, no matter what. They would not die here.
She repeated it in her mind with every struggling step they took; this would be her new mantra. Every so often, Jaeme muttered incoherently, his hand pressed against his shoulder, blood trickling through his fingers.
They would not die here.
She had no idea how many hours they walked, hunched and wounded and shivering and taking only the barest of breaks. The swamp around them grew incrementally sparser after a while, until Daniella thought that they could possibly see their path even without Sayvil’s burning reeds.
All Daniella knew was that the most beautiful sight she had ever seen was the clearing of grassland they happened upon, firmly on dry ground and away from mud and muck and the threat of Nichtees. And though they had farther to go yet before they reached Haidshir, Daniella could no longer take another step without rest. Her legs buckled and she fell to her knees, weeping. Sayvil did the same, and Jaeme collapsed to the firm earth, as the rosy dawn painted the sky with light.
Behind them, the swamp hummed with the buzzing of flies and the chirping of crickets, and even the low throaty croak of a bullfrog that Daniella was certain Nikaenor would have caught for breakfast—all sounds that had been absent in the domain of the Nichtees. Her stomach rumbled, and she knew that, wounded and exhausted as they were, there would be nothing more to eat than whatever nearby roots Sayvil could forage.
But they’d made it out of the depths of the swamp. The Nichtees were behind them. They did not die.
Daniella only hoped that the others had been so lucky.
Fourteen
Kenton waited inside the tent, his wrists burning from the rope chafing against his raw skin. His body was tense, at the ready, hoping the guards outside would fail to catch the new prisoners, who could very well be some of his friends.
Run, he thought. Get out while you can.
But the sounds of fighting outside the tent grew brutal, and Kenton hoped it wasn’t his friends who were taking the beating.
Then the tent door opened, and Perchaya stood there in her night dress and boots, holding a dagger in front of her and a sword in the other hand.
Kenton blinked.
“Perchaya,” Nikaenor whispered in awe, as if he was seeing a vision.
“All right you two, it’s time to go,” Perchaya said. She knelt down by Kenton, dropping the sword, and began cutting at the ropes at his wrists with the dagger. She grinned broadly at his obvious surprise. “That is, if you’re ready.”
Kenton watched her in shock for a moment longer, improbably here in the prisoners’ tent with him, cutting away at his wrist ropes. He pushed away the bizarre thought that maybe he had, in fact, fallen asleep.
“They caught you,” he said. “And you . . . escaped?”
“They didn’t catch me,” Perchaya said. “I came to rescue you.” One of the ropes broke apart, freeing his hands enough to wiggle them out completely. She handed the sword to Kenton before bending down to free Nikaenor. “I’ll explain later. Let’s get you two out of here first. I don’t know how much time we have.” She cut furiously at the ropes on Nikaenor’s wrists, while Nikaenor beamed up at her like she was his goddess herself.
Kenton held the sword hilt loosely at first, getting a feel for its weight and size. It was slightly lighter than his own, but not enough to throw him off in a fight.
She’d come to rescue them. As if that were the most natural thing in the world. He allowed himself one more glance at her. Her hair was stringy and matted, her face sweaty from the exertion of the fight outside, he guessed, and whatever else in the gods’ names she’d been doing.
And yet, Kenton realized, never before that moment had he found her more beautiful.
There wasn’t time for this. He crept to the entrance of the tent and pulled open the flap just enough to see out. Two soldiers—one rather bulky and impassive, the other looking noticeably anxious—flanked the tent.
A wiry young man wearing Foroclaean peasant garb leaned against the thick trunk of the oak tree in front of them, also looking fearfully around him. The bodies of two more soldiers lay sprawled on the ground, and the other soldiers were trying awkwardly to stand. Kenton shut the tent flap again as Perchaya helped Nikaenor to his feet.
“You snuck in with townspeople wearing soldiers’ uniforms,” Kenton said with marked admiration.
Perchaya grinned back. “Well, I learned from the best.” She glanced down at his chest when she said this, and Kenton suddenly remembered that he, too, was still wearing pieces of the black and gold tunic of the soldier from the inn. Her smile fell as she saw him more clearly. “Gods, your face . . . what did they do?”
“They beat him to all hells,” Nikaenor said. “But he saved us. You should have seen—”
Kenton shrugged dismissively, though even that motion hurt. “It’s certainly not the worst beating I’ve had in a tavern. I’ll be fine. So . . . you started a fire somewhere to distract the guards and then—”
“And then we all talked too much,” Perchaya said, “and got caught again by the guards and carted off to Diamis.” She stepped outside just enough to grab a uniform from one of her accomplices, and tucked her nightdress into the breeches she wore underneath before pulling the uniform on. Then she twisted her hair to tuck it inside the helmet.
No. Now. This was the moment in which Perchaya was more attractive than he’d ever seen her. Kenton followed her out, marveling at the bravery of what she’d just done.
“Nikaenor!” the burly Foroclaean “guard” said, pulling Nikaenor into a tight hug as they passed out of the tent.
“Hi, Ronan,” Nikaenor said, the look of wonder still on his face.
Kenton looked around him as he stepped out. He could hear shouts in the distance and could see a glimmer of bright orange flames licking the night sky. The distraction.
It had worked, apparently. When he had been brought here, he had seen at least twenty soldiers, which he now knew to be just a small fraction of the complete force surrounding Ithale. Now there wasn’t anyone here except the small group that Perchaya had led to the rescue.
“We have to find Mum and Esta,” Ronan said. “The other prison tent is supposed to be on the east side of the camp.”
Kenton put a hand on Perchaya’s shoulder, and the two exchanged a brief look.
“We have to get out of here,” she said. “Nikaenor, put on Jexton’s tunic and helm. You’ll need it for us to get back into town.” Perchaya handed Nikaenor a scabbard for his sword. “The rest of you will rescue Esta and Noreen and head back through the brush. We can leave you one horse for the prisoners. We’ll need the other three.”
The three men nodded, apparently not the least bit reticent to follow the commands of a leader who not only happened to be a woman but was also an outsider to their town. Kenton raised an eyebrow at her—it was obvious that more had happened since he left the tavern than simply a well-planned rescue.
“I’ll steal us another few horses,” Ronan said. “We’ll get my family to safety and then join the others fighting in town.”
The fighting in town? Kenton looked at Perchaya, but she just gave a short nod to Ronan and motioned for Kenton to follow her toward the brush, where he hoped their horses were waiting.
“We need to get back to town,” Perchaya said. “The townspeople could be in real trouble. We need to—”
“We need to get to the sea,” Kenton said. Whatever was happening in town, this was the most important, and it had to happen before anything else could get in the way to stop it. He met Nikaenor’s eyes in the dim dawn light. “It’s time for you to go after your jewel.”
Nikaenor wilted. “But my family. I need to—”
“You need to provide them a miracle,” Kenton said.
Perchaya hesitated, then put a hand on Nikaenor’s arm. “He’s right. I promised the townspeople you’d find the godstone.”
She . . . gods. Perchaya had been busy.
Nikaenor looked miserable, but he nodded. “Into the sea.”
“Yes,” Kenton said. “If that’s where you feel called to go.”
“I feel called to hide under a rock,” Nikaenor said, “but yes. I think she’s in the sea.”
“Good,” Perchaya said, mounting one of the horses. “We’ll get you to the water and then Kenton and I will get back to the revolt. I started the thing, so I can’t leave them to it.”
Kenton stared in amazement at her for the second—third?—time. She’d started a full-scale revolt?
As they rode away from the camp, taking a circling path to head back to town by way of the water, Kenton noticed Perchaya looking nervously around them, as if soldiers might leap from the bushes at any moment and take them all captive again.
He rode up beside her. “It’ll be okay,” he said.
Perchaya shook her head. “The townspeople are fighting. They’re dying. I don’t know what the reaction of the army has been, but I’m sure they’re not overlooking this.”
So that was it. Not nervousness, but guilt. The kind that comes when lives have been lost because of your doing. He hated that he’d brought this on her.
“You did what you had to do,” he said. And he couldn’t help thinking she’d done it far better than anyone could have expected.
“I know,” she said simply.
Without another word, they both followed Nikaenor through the southern oak trees, dodging around their wide, sprawling branches, the roar of the ocean becoming louder with each step.
As they emerged from the wooded area, faint yelling came from the direction of town, and they all turned to look. The sky was growing brighter now as the sun rose over the ocean, illuminating a large plume of smoke rising from the center of town.
“Oh gods,” Nikaenor said, his face pale. “They’ve set a fire. It looks like it’s near the inn. I have to—”
“No,” Kenton said. “They need you to find Mirilina. You’re the only one who can.” He reached out and took Nikaenor’s reins, leading both of their horses down to the shore.
There was a small pier that jutted into the water, on which were tied two small fishing boats. Kenton rode toward it, then dismounted and indicated for Nikaenor to do the same. The boy seemed unable to tear his eyes from the smoke, and Kenton couldn’t blame him. He, too, feared for the townspeople of Ithale, for Nikaenor’s family, and for the rest of their group, wandering through the depths of the swamp. Kenton was battle-hardened and used to tremendous losses. He could only imagine what this fear must be doing to Perchaya and Nikaenor.
