David Wells - Cursed Bones

Isabel’s sudden panic faded away as quickly as it had assailed her. She pondered it while she walked. She’d never experienced anything like it in her life, debilitating fear in the face of … nothing. It was unnerving.

All three raptors were down and unconscious, felled by poisoned darts delivering venom powerful enough to overcome even them. They moved past them and reached the edge of the swamp by late afternoon. Trajan cursed when they arrived at the spot where they’d left their rafts. All of them were gone, simply vanished.

“I have a boat farther south,” Isabel offered.

“How many will it hold?”

“Probably seven, plus I have a raft that can hold the other four.”

It didn’t take long to reach Isabel’s hiding place, load everybody into the boats and cast off. Isabel was more than happy to be leaving the mountain. She had what she’d come for … and the place had been less than welcoming.

Trajan set a grueling pace for his men, rowing the boat and poling the raft as fast as they could go, without interruption, one team of rowers taking over for the previous team, ensuring that forward motion never stopped. They reached the inner band of high ground late the following day with just enough time before dark to build a fire.

Trajan sat in front of the fire, the Goiri bone heavy end down between his feet, his hands resting on the pommel. “With this, I could rid Karth of magic once and for all.”

His men nodded, murmuring their agreement.

“I could eliminate it from all the Seven Isles.”

His men stopped nodding and started looking at each other.

“Magic is not evil, Trajan,” Ayela said. She’d been very quiet since Hazel had been sacrificed. “It can be used for good as well.”

“It’s too much power to be entrusted to any one person,” Trajan said. “Magic can do terrible things. Look what it did to our family-even to the Regency command staff.”

“Bad people did those things,” Ayela said. “They just used magic to make them happen.”

“My point exactly,” Trajan said. “If they didn’t have magic in the first place, they wouldn’t be able to do such things. Eliminate magic and preserve the world.”

“And how do you plan to eliminate magic?” Ayela asked. “Are you going to start murdering people just because they have magic?”

Trajan frowned, his state of mind suddenly shifted by the slap-in-the-face tone of his sister’s rebuke. He shook his head slightly as if facing his own statements for the first time and finding them abhorrent. “I’m not sure why I said that,” he muttered, still shaking his head.

Isabel absentmindedly played with the Goiri bone hanging around her neck while she watched the exchange. She needed Trajan, both in the short term to get where she was going and in the long term as an ally, but his behavior was starting to worry her.

He quietly excused himself and slipped off into the mist. Not a minute later, he cried out for help.

Everyone came to their feet, drawing weapons and moving toward his voice. He wasn’t forty steps outside the camp, just beyond the range of sight, and he was completely wrapped up by a giant snake, lying on his side, one arm free, struggling to breathe. The black-scaled monster was easily forty feet long and it had a good eight feet of itself wavering threateningly over Trajan’s head, six coils wrapped around his body and the rest trailing out behind him into the mist.

Trajan’s men spread out, surrounding the snake, but it hissed and struck, driving them back a step or two. Isabel tossed Trajan her dagger. He clawed around in the dirt blindly until his hand found steel, then came up with the blade and plunged it into the first coil of the snake. The snake flinched, loosening its grip, giving Trajan a precious gulp of air, before tightening around him again.

He stabbed again, and again. Each time, the snake recoiled but not enough for him to get free. One of his men got too close, jabbing at the snake with a spear. It dodged right and struck, four-inch fangs piercing into the man’s chest in a blink, then recoiling just as fast, leaving the man still standing for just a moment before he realized he was dead and fell over.

Trajan buried the knife to the hilt and started sawing across the snake’s body. It started to unwind, but Trajan held on, cutting crosswise, trying to cut it in half, until it tore free and vanished into the swamp. He got to his feet and handed Isabel her dagger with a nod of thanks before retrieving his club and turning toward the fire. He made it just one step before he collapsed, coughing up blood.

They carried him to the fire and laid him down, but that only seemed to make things worse. He seized up in pain, gasping in short breaths, rolling on his side and curling into a ball. His men looked from one to the other and shook their heads in resignation. He’d been crushed by a giant snake. Most people didn’t survive such a thing.

Isabel walked over and picked up the club, Ayela forestalling any protest from Trajan’s men with a withering glare while standing over her wounded brother. Isabel walked away into the swamp, far enough for Hector’s last healing potion to work. Without it, Trajan would die. With it, he’d be on his feet in a couple of days. When she asked Ayela if they should use it, given Trajan’s feelings about magic, Ayela insisted they use it immediately.

When Isabel and the Goiri bone were far enough away, Ayela administered the potion, much to the consternation of Trajan’s men. They protested loudly but she ignored them as she tipped her brother’s head back. After swallowing the draught, he fell into a fitful sleep, becoming feverish in the night and waking frequently.

By morning, he was sleeping soundly and it looked like the worst of his injuries were mended. Isabel kept the club away from him while the potion did its work. She didn’t know if the Goiri bone would stop the potion from working at this point, but she didn’t want to take the risk.

By evening, he was up and mended well enough to walk. Isabel gave him back his club.

“Ayela tells me she demanded magic be used to heal me.”

“Yes,” Isabel said.

He nodded, frowning. “Thank you,” he muttered, turning away from her.

They set out the following morning on a maddening journey through a maze of high ground that didn’t often connect. Without Slyder, Isabel felt blind. She’d always taken him for granted, or at least the power he gave her … now she recognized just what a blessing he really was.

They reached the far side of the high ground several frustrating days later. Tensions were high. The mist was starting to bear down on them, pressing in from all sides like it meant them harm, creating anxiety, fear, even panic. They’d had to backtrack dozens of times and they’d gotten turned around several times, but they’d finally reached deep water. One last stretch and they would be free of the insistent desolation all around them.

It took a day to harvest the wood for the two rafts they would need and another day to build them. They set out at dawn the following morning, poling across the water with two men working together on each raft to move them at best speed. By dark, they’d traversed the majority of the band of water circling the outskirts of the gloaming swamp, but they chose to tie off to a tree and wait for dawn before proceeding.

By dark the following day, they were several leagues into the jungle and feeling much better for it. Spirits were high when they stopped to make camp. The chittering, burbling, singing life all around was a stark and welcome contrast to the lifeless desolation of the swamp. Isabel was buoyed by the abundance surrounding her, wishing she could share it with Alexander as she drifted off to sleep.