neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

“Watch it, mate!” Squill’s bright eyes stared into his own. “Remember that’s ‘ow they work, the Moors. If the atmosphere doesn’t get you, then they try fatalistic philosophy. That’s wot Mudge always told us.”

Neena glared challengingly at the rutilant fungi. “There can’t be depression where mere’s music. Keep playin’, Bunkole.”

Buncan looked down at his duar. The polished surface of the unique instrument seemed dulled, the strings uneven and fraying. “I don’t know if this is doing any good.”

This time Squill grabbed him by the shoulders and half spun him around on the bench. The duar bonged against Gragelouth’s knee. The sloth winced but said nothing, resolutely tending to his driving.

“Fok your ‘don’t knows,’ mate! This ‘ere swamp is the mother of all indecision. Wake up, and play!”

Buncan nodded, blinking. The effect of the Moors, he realized, was so insidious you weren’t aware of what the place was doing to you even as it happened. Fortunately, otters had a very strong natural resistance to depression. He directed his attention to the duar with a vengeance.

Immediately the air seemed brighter, clearer. The grim fog rolled back and fungi in the wagon’s path crawled or oozed aside. Seeing that the music kept the creeping enervation at bay, even Gragelouth made an attempt to join in the singing.

They were feeling much better when the Moors responded, not with additional intimations of infectious ennui, but with music of its own: a distant, wild baying. It stopped their own singing cold. A prickly clamminess crept down Duncan’s back like a rain-soaked centipede.

“Wot were that?” Squill murmured, wide-eyed. “Sounds like somethin’ that crawled out o’ river-bottom mud.” He looked to the merchant.

Gragelouth was sniffing the air. “I do not recognize the sound. Nor do I look forward to encountering its source.” As he finished, the noise came again: flagrant, whetted, and definitely closer.

Buncan shook the sloth’s arm. “Don’t stop now. Not here. Can’t we go any faster?”

“My team was bred for endurance and not sprints,” the sloth told bun. “You can see that for yourself. They are making the best speed they can.” He glanced nervously sideways. “There is something about that sound which is more evil than mere depression.”

“Penetratin’, wotever it is,” Neena observed as the wild baying echoed through the morass. It definitely was not the wind: Wind was unknown in the Moors, where even a stray zephyr grew quickly depressed and died. The howling was dark and deep and rich with carnivorous import.

“I see somethin’ movin’!” Squill rose and pointed to their left.

A flash of movement among the undergrowth, a glimpse of bright red fireflies; then nothing. Gragelouth sat rigid on the bench. There was nothing he could do to speed his plodding, slow-witted team along the slick, potholed path. His nose twitched.

“I sense many presences.”

Buncan eyed him curiously. “You can sense presences?”

“A metaphor, young human. Can’t you feel them out there, around us?”

“I don’t feel anything except damp depression.” He fingered the duar nervously.

“No aura of menace? No overweening sense of incipient doom?”

“No more so than what we’ve been feeling since we left the Bell woods.” The baying and howling was constant around them now, drowning out the other background sounds of the Moors.

“Then you may be a spellsinger, or half a one, anyway,” the sloth murmured, “but your perception leaves much to be desired.”

So does your breath, Duncan wanted to say, but he was interrupted by Squill’s sudden shout.

“Crikey!” The otter was pointing again.

This time Buncan had no trouble picking out the pair of burning red eyes directly in front of them. They bobbed slightly as they advanced on the wagon. Unable to turn either to right or left, Gragelouth tugged on the reins and brought the cumbersome vehicle to a grinding halt. As he did so, the owner of the fiery gaze appeared out of the mist.

Standing just under five and a half feet tall, the hound had teeth that gleamed in the baleful light. Prominent fangs hung from the upper jaw. The canine specter wore a muckledidun shirt and pants tucked into high boots. Protruding from the trousers, the short tail switched back and forth like a metronome. Or a scythe.

A short sword with an unusually heavy, sharply curved blade hung with studied indifference from one paw. It would take a powerful individual to wield such a weapon with one hand, Buncan knew. His own fingers rested on the duar’s strings as he exchanged a meaningful glance with the otters. They nodded understanding, though there was no reason to spellsing yet. While the Moor dweller’s aspect was intimidating, he’d made nothing in the way of an overt threat. Yet.

A second pair of eyes materialized out of the mist. Another, and another, and more. All were hounds, though of varying shape, coloration, and size. All were heavily armed.

The one who confronted them had a spiked collar encircling his neck. The spikes had been filed to fine points. None of the others wore anything like formal armor, though Buncan noted an abundance of spiked leg-pieces and wristbands.

Taken in toto they were an altogether disagreeable-looking lot. It was clear they were not out haunting the Moors in search of a casual day’s stroll. By the same token, it was difficult to countenance the possibility that they actually lived there, though their appearance suggested a condition and lifestyle even the Moors would be hard-pressed to worsen.

Advancing around the team, the lead hound finally halted to confront the wagon’s occupants. As he looked them slowly up and down, Buncan could see the play of muscles across the broad chest and thickly bunched upper arms. As it stared it methodically slapped the heavy blade of its curved sword against an open palm.

“We don’t get many travelers out here in the Moors.” The voice was a rough, curdled growl, the words crumbling against the heavy palate like gravel in a crusher.

“Not enough,” quipped one of the others. Low, ominous laughter came from the rest of the band, which by now had completely surrounded the wagon.

“Where are you headed?” inquired the leader.

“To the northwest.” Gragelouth kept his eyes down, avoiding the hound’s burning gaze, the reins of his team clutched tightly in his thick, furry fingers.

“That’s not very informative. Where to the northwest?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose not.”

Buncan leaned forward. “We’ve come a long way and have a lot farther to go. If you’re bandits, say so now and we’ll give you our money.” Gragelouth turned sharply to his youthful companion, his pupils widening.

“Can’t step anywhere these days without ‘avin’ to scrape scum off your feet,” Squill muttered.

The hound glared up at him. “What was that?”

Squill smiled pleasantly. “I said that it were ‘and to get around these days.”

The hound’s intensity diminished, but only slightly. “It certainly is if your destination brings you through the Moors. None come this way who can go otherwise.”

“To go completely around the Moors would have taken too much time,” Gragelouth mumbled deferentially.

“And yet there are many dangers here.” Apparently the leader was in a conversational mood.

A hound with a mottled black-and-brown visage edged nearer. A grisly scar ran from the top of his skull down across his face and clear around to the back of his neck. Its pattern and angle suggested a botched attempt at decapitation.

“More dangers than you can imagine,” he grunted.

“Time is important to us,” Gragelouth replied lamely.