James Clemens - Hinterland

They were forced to proceed no faster than a man could row, lest they risk breaking some of the paddles.

And still the trees grew taller, the canopy thicker, blocking all moonlight.

Tylar lit a small torch to check his map.

“I could use one of those up front,” Rogger griped. “I can barely see past my nose, let alone this pointy bow.”

Brant squeezed Dart’s hand and let go. “I’ll do it,” he said and scooted down the bench.

He collected one of the larger torches, lit it off of Tylar’s brand, and moved forward to join Rogger. Brant steadied himself with a hand on the port rail and held the torch high. The firelight stretched across the water.

Able to see, Dart glanced up. The canopy overhead was draped with giant striped vines. The firelight played along their bellies, making them seem to shift and slide. Then a scaled head snaked down out of the twist, hissing to reveal fangs as long as her outstretched hand.

The firelight stirred others, warming their scales.

Dart squeaked in alarm, sliding off her seat to the planks below.

Other eyes noted what roosted in their rafters. One of the serpents uncoiled and slid out of the tangle, crashing to the boat’s center with a writhe of muscles, as thick around as Dart’s leg.

She grabbed the rail, ready to leap into the water.

But Malthumalbaen sighed, snatched the snake by the tail, and whipped it over his shoulder, as if tossing away a gnawed bone. Its coils splashed into the waters behind them.

He returned to resting his chin on his fist.

“It’s only a little snake,” he mumbled.

Rogger eked more alchemy through the mekanicals. With a whisper of paddles, they sped out from under the serpents’ nest. Clear of the pinnacles, they found a less clogged section of the flooded forest, where the currents were swifter.

Brant kept his torch burning.

Dart eventually calmed enough to return to her bench.

Rogger guided them through a watery maze of rocks and hillocks. “Straightest path, my arse,” he grumbled.

Tylar checked the map to the territory. He looked far from convinced that they were on the right track. He looked up and frowned. “If we could see a few stars…”

Despite the dangers, Dart appreciated the occasional handsome view that opened up. A long lane of water lilies that balanced tall-stemmed flowers atop green pads as wide around as Dart was tall. Hanging nests of violet-breasted swifts, so tightly packed that they looked like grapes on a vine. As their boat passed, the birds took to wing without a single peep. But their passage set their hollow nests to bumping against each other, sounding like tuned wood pipes, wafting out a beautiful warbling.

Up ahead, a tall tree swung into view, rising in distinct tiers as if trimmed by the hand of man rather than random growth. Brant’s flames revealed thousands of small blooms, white as snow against the green leaf, all tucked in for the night.

As they swept closer, Dart watched one bloom open its petals. A fat little head beaded out toward them, eyes reflecting crimson. The petals spread wider to reveal wings.

Not hanging flowers.

Bats.

As their earlier passage had fluttered the swifts from their nest, the firelight did the same here, shaking the bats from their roost in a single explosion of wings. But unlike the swifts, the bats weren’t fleeing.

“Torches!” Tylar yelled.

The flock swept toward the boat.

Malthumalbaen moved forward, rocking the boat, to grab two brands. Dart snatched one. In a breath, fires flared across the boat. Unfazed, the bats struck with needle-toothed fury. They landed on shoulder and arm, chest and leg. Teeth bit into skin, claws dug through cloth. Malthumalbaen was assaulted the worst, being the tallest and largest target.

Or maybe it was that he held two torches aloft.

Dart remembered how firelight woke the bats.

Maybe it angered them, too.

Testing this thought, Dart swatted a bat from her neck, then plunged the flaming end of her torch into the water. The fire died with a hiss of steam. The flurry of wings shifted away from her. One bat on her arm leaped toward the giant, despite the greater danger of his slapping hands and massive pinching fingers.

“It’s our fire!” Dart called out. “The flames goad them to attack!”

The flames were quickly doused. Malthumalbaen threw his last brand far behind the boat. It flew end over end, blowing brighter by the passage, trailing embers. The flock of bats took wing after the flying torch.

They all sank down into the darkness, scratched and bitten.

“Those mites are far worse than any snake,” Malthumalbaen grumbled, sucking at a wounded finger.

They continued onward without torches.

“It shouldn’t be far,” Tylar finally said, rolling his map, squeezing the scroll tight in his hands.

Proving his word, a glow appeared through a tangle of woods ahead. Tylar motioned Rogger to slip out of the clearer current in the flooded wood and edge more slowly through the choked channels. It would be easier to hide their approach among the heavier bushes and low branches.

As they left the swifter current, the waters thickened with weed and algae. Rogger cut the alchemy to a trickle, drifting more than powered.

The glow shone from directly ahead.

“Does anyone else smell that?” Rogger whispered, nose pinching.

“Brimstone,” Tylar mumbled, followed by a hushing motion.

Rogger drifted them closer, nosing them through bushes. He finally stifled the alchemical flows completely. Malthumalbaen propelled them from there on, reaching to tree limbs and bushes to pull them toward the glow.

“Far enough!” Rogger warned in a whisper.

They all shifted forward, weighting the bow down. The giant stepped back to steady the trim.

Dart scooted up beside Brant. Through a break in the foliage, the view opened to a monstrous sight.

An island rose from the center of an open expanse of water, a lake within the drowned woods. Six giant pinnacles rimmed the land, each tilting slightly outward. It made the entire island look like a half-submerged crown.

Dart saw that the inner surfaces of each pinnacle had been shaved flat. She could just make out etched pictures and symbols drawn upon the smoothed surfaces. It reminded her of the small circle of stones at the Wyr camp, covered with ancient writing.

Between the spires of the crown, low stone structures ringed the island. And in the center blazed a massive fire, shaking with green flame, shimmering off rock and stone wall.

“It’s an old human settlement,” Rogger said.

“Taken over by the Cabal,” Tylar whispered. “The location is not random or mere opportunity. The Cabal sway their human allies with a false promise of an end to godly tyranny. What better stronghold than one of our old settlements, ripe with sentiment and history?”

“Why does the water boil and glow out in the lake here?” Dart asked. “Is it more Dark Grace?”

Dart stretched to view the extent of the boil. All around the island, circling it entirely, the water trembled and bubbled. Steam wafted in shimmering sheets, high and away. Here was the source of the brimstone. A deep crimson glow shone from the depths.

“No,” Brant said, “it’s not Dark Grace. I believe it’s a flow from Takaminara, like the burn that cut a swath through Saysh Mal. She sends her molten fingers out into the hinterland.”

“But why? Is she protecting the island?”

Rogger answered. “More like protecting the world. I wager if she had the chance, she’d melt the island to slag, but that green fire must be fueled by the rogues, keeping her at bay. There is little else she could do. Takaminara’s influence beyond her realm is limited, and she is only one god against who knows how many rogues here.”