Yamara - Book 2 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I awoke to a nightmare of giving birth to a giant leech. It left me with a cold shiver that would not leave me for several minutes. I had taken the first watch to be certain that I had not bumped my head overly hard on the tree; Evart now looked over as I stretched away the last of the unpleasant dream and stood up.

The swamp looked much as before, though with the faint light of an approaching Dawn it seemed less hospitable then ever. What promised to be an overcast sky finished off the grim scenery. As I glanced about our surroundings the prior night rushed through my head. Or at least, my disclosure to Evart regarding Brina and James. I expected to feel some trepidation or regret about telling him so much, but to my surprise, I found none of those emotions. Instead I found more questions.

"Tell me then, who now leads the Special Elendarian Task force?" I asked him.

Evart stared at me for a long moment, clearly debating where his loyalties lie and whether or not he should divulge such information. At the last he decided to be open. "Duke James former right hand man, Baron Paul, now runs the Elendarian Intelligence Agency."

I looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Does nobody stay dead in this world?" My tone was incredulous. I was amazed at what he said.

"What do you mean?" He asked me, clearly interested.

"Brina, my sister, slew him months before I killed James."

"You are sure of this?"

I nodded. "I stood from me to you away from him when she snapped his neck. Rifled through his belongings myself. Not a pulse, not a breath. As surely slain as a man can be without being entombed as well."

Evart cursed. "Word must be returned to Elendar of these happenings. And not through the network, you must return there!"

I chuckled. "In good time, Evart. There are things that I must do first."

"If what you say is true and that you have slain these men before yet still they live, perhaps your quest is in vain. Your goals might be better served to return and root out the source of evil there!"

I began gathering up my things, my will more determined then ever. "If you wish to put a stop to the source of evil in men, then you must first destroy their free will."

Evart fell silent, noting my determination. Finally he sighed. "Very well, let us be off then."

Camp was broken and our now dried equipment was repacked and stashed back aboard the canoe. "Do you know how to paddle?" He asked me. I just nodded.

Then we were off, paddling through the swamp and heading towards the Emmerdwym. Time and distance seemed to pass slowly, with the hidden sun slowly warming the fen around us, sweat began to run down our skin.

"What was that creature I slew yesterday?" I asked him after a couple of hours of silence had passed between us. Only the sound of the paddles dipping in the water and our breathing as we stroked through the thick waters had surrounded us.

"A bogwyrm," Evart responded without preamble. "Some say them twisted cousins of dragons, though they boast no intelligence above that of a snakes cunning."

I nodded from the front of the canoe, my curiosity sated. Silence again resumed between us, save for the occasional guidance from Evart as to which way I should paddle. We remained that way for a few more hours, until the soon had passed its zenith. No more sign of attack came to us, though I saw many predatory eyes regard us off in the distance. Mostly snakes and crocodiles, though both larger then any I had seen before.

We stopped early that day, with at least three hours of the half-light that constituted daytime in the eternal bog remaining. Evart explained it away as us having made more progress then he had anticipated, and that to progress further at night was not wise. So instead we set up a cold camp and went about checking and rechecking our equipment.

"Do you think we are being watched?" I asked him while we quietly went over our gear. I had felt no prying eyes, but I considered it highly likely that our presence had not only been noted, but actively sought out.

Evart just shrugged. "I know this swamp as well as any, I have seen no signs of pursuit."

"With James and Paul now working for Dagrazt, don't you think it likely that your position here was long ago compromised? My money says you live under intense scrutiny from one day to the next."

Evart scowled. "Say not the Dark One's name so close to his realm, you will draw his attention!" Then after glaring at me for a moment he sighed and let out a mirthless chuckle. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I have switched sides as well? Why stop with merely James? Perhaps I am leading you into a trap? Or perhaps you are one of the enemies followers after all, sent here with a story so unbelievable I would be forced to accept it, only to lead me to a trap that would deliver me unto the inquisitioners of the Dark One?"

I shared his dark chuckle. "Fair enough. Though I think the last most unlikely, considering my cut." Evart's hand went to the new scar on his throat thoughtfully. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

"True. That leaves it more likely that I am going to great lengths to deliver you to Baron and Mistress Palungol."

I scowled at the mention of Brina in such a way, though I must admit that all evidence clearly showed my reaction to be unfair. "Moreso considering your racial heritage," I pointed out.

Evart sighed. He stared off into the quickly approaching dusk long enough that I considered him to be avoiding my unspoken question. At long last though, he spoke, catching me almost by surprise.

"As a child my mother was part of a group of Gneissian's on a holy pilgrimage. Unbeknownst to them, a great battle had taken place to the south of them, at a gate in the great wall surrounding Gneiss north of Mardurin. Back in the days before King Mordrim had led his people to take up the mountains west of the Barony of Tyusk.

"The gate lay a smoking ruin, blasted apart by unholy magic and the combined might of ogre-kin. Their purpose was a simple one, a raiding party to show the Gneissian's they were not safe and that their zealous disbelief served only to make them unprepared for the realities of the world."

Evart stopped, recalling the stories his mother had told him long ago. "My mother was captured when this raiding party had overtaken the pilgrims. She watched her own mother raped countless times by inhuman things before at long last her will to live was broken and her tortured body would support her no longer. Still they used her, though she felt the pain never again. Her father, a priest himself, refused to fight. Instead he called upon the aid of Cymbos to protect them all. The aid Cymbos gave him was far from enough. The last my mother saw of her father was him trying to pull his own entrails from the mouths of the great wolves of Mardurin."

I admit, I was impressed. It was the beginning of a good story, true or not.

"So then your mother was raped, but managed to escape before she could be slain?"

Evart shook his head. "No, she was young and pure. She was to be taken back to Mardurin for worse things. On their triumphant return, the evil force was tracked and assaulted by a special unit of Gneissians trained to be not so blind in their beliefs as the common soldier. They were outnumbered greatly, but they attacked by surprise and had routed the evil party.

"The small company that laid claim to my mother fled south, hurrying over the mountains to reach the safe borders of their dark demesne. Instead they chanced upon a small company of Elendarian's. A S.E.T. group, in fact. Amongst their number was none other then Mordrim, ere he returned to his people, as well as the legendary elven heroine, Tarala Redmoon. Gildor, the soon to be renowned Elendarian pathfinder led their troop. Their final member is perhaps known to you now by the name of General Andres."

I was surprised. Andres had not looked to be anything overly skilled or dangerous to me when I had seen him in the Elendarian palace. Then again, he was old now, compared to back when he was in his prime.

"Outnumbered more then 5 to 1, they nevertheless gave battle. Tarala's sorcery and archery began the furor, with Gildor's keen eyes and bow the only weapon able to surpass the elven maiden. By the time Mordrim and Andres reached my mothers captors their ranks had been decimated twice over. Tarala and Gildor took up their swords and joined them, cutting a swath through their ranks. In several minutes the battle was over and my mother rescued."

"Of all of them, it was Mordrim who took care of my mother the best. They were returning from a great mission in which they had retrieved a ancient Dwarven artifact that Mordrim wielded with great pride."

"All well and good, but Gneissian's do not resemble you hardly at all. A good story though," I said to him.

"I'm not finished," he rebuked me with a glare. "My mother became an agent of Elendar, never again to have anything to do with Gneiss. One of her missions, many years later, put her as a spy near Mardurin. She was required to seduce an agent of the Dark One, and in the process of doing so, I was conceived. I was born near this land, the son of a Havrin war leader. Because of me it was many years before my mother could escape, for she refused to leave me behind."

"And that, essentially, is why I am part Havrin and able to blend in so well down here. I know their ways because I lived as one of them for the beginning of my life. I speak the languages down here, and were it not for my mother's secret teachings to me, I would be your enemy."

"Perhaps you still are," I said, smiling faintly to show that I was not accusing him so much as teasing him. "Where is your mother now?"

"Dead, of course. In our escape from the tribe of Havrin my father was the chief of, she took a wound that became infected. She languished for weeks, but we returned all the way to Elendar before at long last she succumbed to her wounds. I was 13 years old." Evart looked at me, daring me to challenge him further. I took him at face value for the moment, but let myself be swayed not at all towards giving him any of my trust. After all, it was a good story.

An uncomfortable silence descended between us, something I was very unaccustomed to. Silence is normally very comfortable to me, even if I am around somebody else who does not find it so comforting. It was a very odd feeling.

Evart ended it abruptly by standing up and looking about us. I remained seated, but glanced about suspiciously, wondering if he could have picked up on something that I missed. Sensing nothing, I looked at him questioningly.

"We have no food," he reminded me. When our canoe had been dumped during the fight with the bogwyrm all of our food had either fallen into the swamp or been thoroughly soaked and ruined by the brackish water. Our skins of water remained safely sealed and nearly full, and I had some trail rations stored safely away in my magical pouch, but those were for emergency purposes. As yet, I did not feel as though we were in an emergency. Nor did I want Evart to know any more about my belongings then necessary.

I rose as well now, my stomach grumbling silently at the sudden realization that we had not eaten all day. "What is safe to eat in this place?" I asked him, considering the nature of the foul waters surrounding us.

"Stay here and get a small fire going, I will find something for us."

I watched him suspiciously as he went to the canoe and fished around in it until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a short bow and strung it with a string he had sealed away within a small bone tube. He climbed into the canoe and paddled slowly away from our island next, with me staring at him all the while. He gave a smile and a wave and then disappeared behind some trees.

I scowled. I was now stranded on a small muddy island with only a few trees for cover. Not only that, but there was nothing stopping him from going and fetching whatever allies he may have nearby and coming back to capture or kill me. I cursed in a most unladylike fashion and looked about my impromptu prison for something to use.

Seeing nothing of immediate use, I scaled one of the moss covered trees and began gathering twigs and branches to make a fire. While up there, I was so busy chastising myself for letting Evart slip away so easily that I did not notice my sudden companion. Did not notice it until it was almost too late, that is.

A giant snake, roughly eighteen feet long if not more, coiled around my legs and knocked me off balance before I could escape from it. I fell from the tree and hung there in mid air, suspended by the snake that held my legs wrapped tightly within its coils. My shortsword was in my hand already, as I hung there upside down, but I knew that if I were to lash out I had nothing but a very unpleasant drop awaiting me.

Glancing down I saw that I was at least over the swamp. However, wonder of wonders, a pair of open jaws awaited me there as well, in the form of a small crocodile. Small compared to some of the ones I had seen in the swamp, this one still looked to be easily 12 feet long.

I looked back up and saw that my captor had wasted no time in positioning its head so that in a matter of a few moments it would be able to begin the unhealthy process of swallowing me whole. Unhealthy for me, that is. I considered the distance and decided that prolonging my life, even if only a matter of few seconds, was definitely in my best interests.

I drew a throwing dagger from inside my shirt and sent it towards the croc below me, making it snap its mouth shut when the blade cut a gash across its snout. Using the momentum the throw had given me, I bent my torso up towards the snake and lashed out with my shortsword, severing its head from its body in one swing.

The snakes body spasmed around me, crushing my legs for a brief moment, then letting me slip free to fall. Like a cat, I twisted about in mid air and got my feet below me as I plummeted toward the hurt and angry crocodile. My feet landed on the croc's back, with one sliding off instantly. More importantly though, my sword, angled to absorb as much of the impact as possible, drove through the thick bone in the crocodile's head. The reptile thrashed around me, dying in great seizures. I went under the surface of the water, stunned repeatedly by the convulsing crocodile. Not to mention the pain in my left leg, from ankle to hip, that had managed to land more securely on the back of the croc while my right foot had slid free.

I surfaced and swam toward the shore, gripping my shortsword tightly all the while. I emerged from the water only to be splashed as the body of the snake slid free from the tree and came down behind me. I glanced back and cursed. If Evart found nothing to eat, I had just found two perfectly fine sources of meat. However, that required another trip into the filth that served as water.

Scowling, I stopped only long enough to take off my spare equipment and weapons, though they were already soaked through again, I did not want to run any further risk of losing anything. I waded back in, my feet sinking in to the muck nearly to my knees with each step, and pulled first the body of the snake to shore, then on the next trip, I tugged the heavy crocodile onto the bank. Lances of fiery pain shot up my leg with nearly every step, but in an environment as harsh as the one I was in, I had no room for weakness.

Once I was finished retrieving what would soon be supper, I stripped down completely and began the unpleasant task of removing the nearly fist sized leeches that again covered my body. I shuddered in renewed revulsion at the thought of where some of them might have gone, but was again pleased to find none of them in places where only a select few invited guests are allowed to enter.

Now I had food. My wood I intended to use to start a fire was still up in the trees, however. What I had gathered before had fallen from my surprised hands into the swamp during my encounter with the snake. Scowling anew at the situation, I strapped my sword belt around my naked hips and scaled the same tree, being a little more careful to watch out for native inhabitants. I returned with enough kindling to start a fire, though already one seemed to be burning in my leg. My ankle seemed the worst, and I presumed I had twisted it during my fall.

Nonetheless, a girl's work is never done. I scaled the tree again, searching for larger branches that I could hack down with my sword. By the end of my second trip I was determined to never climb another tree again.

Evart returned as I was blowing a spark into a flame in the tinder. He beached the canoe where we had when first approaching the small island, not seeing the results of my own hunting expedition on the opposite side of the atoll. He whistled softly, some sort of bird hanging from his hand.

"Now that's as fine a way to be welcomed back as I can imagine!" He said, chuckling at my nudity. I scowled at him and turned my back to him.

"Did I get them all off?" I asked.

He instantly knew what I meant. Some of the leeches were still attached to my back, feasting happily away. I knew they were there but did my best to not think about them as I had gone about my business. Evart quickly pulled them off, then demanded that I let him inspect me more thoroughly to be certain I had gotten the rest. Scowling unhappily, I let him do it even though I knew I had done as fine a job as could be done. Turns out I had missed a smaller one on the back of my neck though, so I ended up sheepishly thanking him.

"I was going to say this toratoo bird is not much, but it will let us keep our strength," Evart said, noticing the 16 foot headless body of the snake laying nearby. "But it appears I should have stayed here instead! I'm sorry for not warning you about the tree pythons, though normally they go after much smaller prey like this toratoo bird. This was a really big one though, one of the biggest I have ever seen!"

I just nodded. Of course it was, that was just how my luck ran. "That's nothing," I offered, motioning with my head over towards the body of the crocodile.

Evart looked and let out a whistle of appreciation. "You ever meet anything you didn't kill?" He said with a grin and a casual brush of his throat. I smiled fiercely then looked over to my clothes drying on the branches I had stuck into the ground and formed a makeshift clothesline with.

Evart went to work on the corpses, cutting away parts of the snake and then the croc for dinner. I finished getting the fire going and then began working on hardening a branch to use as a spit. In short order, we were roasting our swamp critter dinner. Evart was doing everything he could to not stare at my nakedness. For my part, I was doing nothing to conceal it either. Noticing how awkward it seemed for him, I suddenly felt a little awkward myself. I changed my position a few times, trying to obtain some small measure of modesty. It was a strange feeling.

Finally I gave up and tried to walk over to where my clothing was drying. I nearly collapsed with my first step, my ankle not wanting to support me. Evart was there in an instant, asking me what had happened.

"Just twisted my ankle earlier is all. It will be fine," I insisted. First rule of being successful in my profession is to never need help, and even when you do, never show that need or ask for it.

He said a few colorful words that showed he did not believe me, and walked over to where the head of the snake sat on the ground. He took out a dagger and began working on the head of the snake, cutting expertly into it. In a few minutes he approached me again, holding a few sharpened splinters of wood that had some glistening liquid on the end of them.

"Sit," he demanded, motioning towards a spot of bare ground. I frowned at him but did so. His manner indicated he knew what he was doing. Besides, my ankle had swollen up to nearly half again its normal size, I began to fear I might have broken it.

He knelt next to where I sat and took my leg into his lap. Gently he probed my ankle with his fingers, trying to determine as I was whether the damage was serious or not. He grunted at last, a satisfied expression on his face. "Just a sprain I think," he said.

"This will numb it and reduce the swelling. If you keep off of it as much as possible it might even be mostly healed by tomorrow night."

"What is it?" I asked, wondering what he was planning.

"Poison and blood from the snake mixed together. In small amounts it aids in healing. In larger amounts, it acts as a drug and sells for quite a price." I felt the first prick then. Then feeling washed away almost instantly though as the snake oil medicine began to affect my ankle. When he was finished I had 6 splinters pin-cushioning my ankle, though none stuck into it deeply. The relief was nearly instantaneous, though I knew better then to put any pressure on it. I nodded my thanks to him, uncertain of any proper way to show it. Only my companions on Acathia would have treated me thusly. I was uncertain as to how to behave towards Evart, the more time I spent with him, the more he seemed to be a decent sort of man. The type of man that I felt quite certain that did not exist, especially in a place such as the one we were in.

"Now put your clothes back on, wench," He said, slapping me playfully on the thigh, "you're making it hard for me to concentrate lying there like that!"

I chuckled in spite of myself. He was a man after all, that much was certain. Evart helped me to my feet and then over to where my clothing was drying. I could hardly get my breeches around my ankle, so I simply made do with my tunic for the time being. It was mostly dried, so I had little cause for complaint.

I took the first watch again, letting Evart get some sleep while I kept an eye out for any more indigenous life forms that felt the need to try and eat me. Inside of a few hours the smell of the slain snake and crocodile drew the attention of other natives of the swamp. They waited impatiently at the edge of the fire's light, anxious for a chance to dart in and feast on my kills. I counted mostly other crocodiles, but a few shapes seemed even more outlandish. I just kept up my watch and occasionally tossed a burning branch out towards any the approached to closely.

By the time my watch was over I was running low on firewood. I woke Evart and showed him the situation. He told me he had expected as much, and climbed up a tree to gather more wood for his watch. It was a long time coming, considering our guests, but eventually I managed to catch a few hours of sleep ere the dawn came.

With dawn I found our uninvited dinner guests gone. Gone also were the leftover remains of our dinner. When I showed my interest in it, Evart explained how the hungry denizens had grown more bold after I fell asleep and come forward enough to drag the meals back into the water with them. I shuddered inside at the thought of all those teeth, but assumed that Evart had made certain we were in no unnecessary danger.

I realized in short order that my leg was feeling much better as well. The ankle seemed all but healed. Only a little stiffness remained, which I stretched out of it as soon as I became aware of it. My knee showed a few twinges of pain whenever I walked down a slope, but it was easy for me to deal with and in no way hindered my movement.

Our days journey through the swamp brought us within site of others in makeshift skiffs, canoes, and boats. In almost all cases some or all of the travelers within those boats were lizardmen. Evart cautioned me to wear my hood early that morning to avoid any undue attention. I wore it without complaint at first, in spite of the quickly growing heat of the day. Then as I saw our new neighbors on the waterways, I silently praised his good advice.

"Welcome to Emmerdwym," he said in a voice pitched low so as to not carry over the fetid water. Ahead of us I could just make out the burning lamps and torches along the docks of the port city of Sarph.

"How big is it?" I asked, my voice equally toned for silence.

"The barony is many leagues across, but to go where you need to go, we will provision ourselves here then head to the north and west, avoiding the more heavily populated areas. We will see a change in scenery in perhaps ten days, and enter into Palungol in two weeks."

Continued in Chapter 8

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