David Wells - Cursed Bones

“I imagine this swamp plays tricks on anybody who’s fool enough, or desperate enough, to trespass here,” Isabel said.

The light of dawn was just beginning to filter through the mist, gradually lifting the total darkness of night in the gloaming swamp and transforming it into a uniform grey. Slyder showed her that they were still a fair distance from their destination. Given the difficulty of the terrain, probably several days away.

Even though they’d managed to completely dry their clothes during the prior evening, the chill of the fog seemed to cling to Isabel like a damp blanket. She was eager to get moving, more for the warmth of exertion than anything else.

They carefully picked their way through the swamp, a new respect for the deadliness of the water fortifying their patience on the many occasions when they encountered water and had to double back to find another way around. Fortunately, there was enough ground above water for them to make good progress during the morning.

About midday, Alexander appeared in their midst.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked Isabel. “This place looks pretty bad.”

“We’re still alive,” Isabel said, more irritably than she would have liked.

Alexander nodded. “The Regency stopped at the edge of the swamp and sent one soldier into the water. She waded out over her knees, then screamed and tried to get back to solid ground before she fell into the water and went under. The rest decided that you couldn’t be stupid enough to go into the gloaming swamp, so they split their force in two. They’re busy searching for you along the banks to the north and south.

“The Sin’Rath and Trajan’s soldiers are about a day behind and making good time on six rafts they cobbled together. Have you had any trouble?”

“Show him,” Isabel said to Ayela. She dutifully held up the jar containing the leech.

“These things almost killed us all,” Isabel said. “We went into the water and barely made it out alive. Cost us the better part of a day.”

“It looks like a common leech,” Alexander said, inspecting the slimy little creature.

“Trust me, it’s not,” Isabel said. “I’ve had leeches latch on to me before, these are different. I had four stick to me and was unconscious in under a minute-didn’t wake for almost a full day.”

Alexander looked around. “No wonder this place seems so devoid of life.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“I scouted ahead,” Alexander said. “It looks like you should be able to stay on land for about half the distance to the mountain, then the water gets deeper again.”

“Thanks,” Isabel said with an apologetic smile.

“I’ll look in on you whenever I get a chance,” Alexander said, vanishing into the mist.

They traveled a confusing path, avoiding water at every turn. A few times they were forced to cross small sections of standing water. In each case they felled trees to use as bridges rather than risk the water itself.

Late in the afternoon, Hector stopped and signaled for silence, pointing at a form in the mist. Isabel stepped up beside him, trying to figure out what she was looking at. Deciding that the intervening mist was playing with her eyes, she started forward again, as cautiously and as quietly as possible.

Atop a little knoll almost a hundred feet away, surrounded by water and cypress trees standing like sentinels around it, was the remnants of a tree like nothing she’d ever seen before. It must have been huge in its time with a trunk easily thirty feet in diameter, but now it was just a husk of its former glory. Several stout limbs grew out of it at odd angles, ending in splayed-out branches that almost resembled fingers. Five wide roots raised the stump off the ground by about six feet, creating a space underneath that might have made for an excellent camping spot.

Then an eye opened on the side of the trunk … then another and another.

“I don’t like this,” Ayela said.

One of the stout root limbs pulled free of the earth as the thing came alive. The bark split along one side, opening a giant maw four feet wide that ran vertically up the side of the tree. Another root came free, revealing a base of splayed-out roots that served as a foot.

“We should leave,” Hector said.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Isabel said.

With two legs free, the tree thrust up and toward them, pulling its other three legs from the ground. The creature stood, turning in the mist, stretching its limbs like it had been sleeping for a very long time. Isabel counted five eyes, seven arms, and three giant mouths. Then it roared. A kind of gibbering, gurgling cackle that shattered the calm of the swamp, filling the deathly still air with madness.

“Run!” Isabel yelled.

And run they did. The swamp creature shambled behind them, splashing through the water, closing the distance with alarming quickness. Isabel looked over her shoulder, trying to reconcile the thing chasing her with everything she understood about reality. It was as if nature herself had gone mad … and the insanity was gaining on Isabel.

With a thought, she sent Scales to entangle the creature’s legs. The giant snake obediently attacked, winding itself around several of the thing’s stout root limbs, hobbling it and slowing its pursuit.

The swamp thing stopped, grabbing the snake with several of its branch-like arms and jerking it away from its legs, then unceremoniously thrusting a section of the snake into one of its giant vertical maws, clamping down so hard that Scales was torn in half, both ends writhing about in pain and panic. Isabel felt the link to her pet sever as he died.

The creature stopped its chase and started eating the snake with all three mouths, stuffing huge sections of the dead reptile into each maw with almost frantic hunger, barely bothering to chew before taking another bite.

Isabel and her companions stopped, staring with macabre fascination as the thing devoured the giant snake in less than a minute. When it was finished, it looked around with its five eyes, each moving independently of the others, but sensing nothing in the immediate vicinity, it started digging into the muddy soil with its roots as, one by one, its eyes began to close.

Isabel motioned to move away quietly. They traveled in silence for over an hour before Hector stopped, shaking his head.

“What in the name of the Maker was that thing?”

“I don’t know,” Isabel said, “and I don’t really want to.”

“I’m with Isabel,” Ayela said. “That was literally something out of a nightmare.”

“I kind of feel bad for Scales,” Horace said.

“Me too,” Isabel said, “but I think he saved us.”

“I had the same thought,” Hector said. “I wouldn’t even know where to start in a fight with something like that.”

“Can we just get farther away from it, please?” Ayela said.

Horace pointed at her and nodded.

The ground got firmer and higher as they traveled through the afternoon. There were still plenty of pools of standing water but they became much easier to avoid. Near nightfall, they found a shelf of exposed stone that was big enough for them to make camp. Isabel used her light-lance to ignite a damp log and give them some much-needed warmth and light for the night.

She was sitting her watch in the middle of the night when Ayela came awake with a start. She looked around wildly before taking a deep breath and calming herself.

“Nightmare?” Isabel asked quietly.

“Sort of,” Ayela whispered. “An old woman came to me, here at this exact spot, and told me the path we must follow. She showed me the soldiers coming through the night and said we would only survive if we did as she instructed.”

“That sounds pretty specific,” Isabel said, sitting up a little straighter.