Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 (6 page)

“The answer? You don’t,” said Sara disdainfully as she pushed a thick vine out of the way and hoped a snake didn’t fall on her head for the second time. The first experience had been more than enough. They were slimy and large here, as well as vicious. Unlike the small garden or sand serpents at home, she had had to cut this foe up into four pieces before it stopped trying to constrict around her.

Besides the snakes, vermin, and some vicious solitary predators, they found nothing else in this swamp. Stags and boars and elk and anything else that could be expected to fill the bellies of several red-blooded men and women a piece were not native to swampy terrain. And so now Sara Fairchild and, she was sure, Captain Barthis Simon, were faced with the haggard faces of the marching individuals around them.

Men with hollow eyes met her gaze. Women looked around with desperate glances. In the silent faces of the adults, the stark despair was an especially explicit reminder that none of the Cams’ had survived. The quick movements of their feet and the occasional yells and cries as they ran afoul of an irritated mercenary were nowhere to be found. The orphans were long gone. But plenty of the mercenaries were young enough that Sara would have given them a portion of her meat pie...if she had any. Hunger gnawed at the faces of the growing men and women. But it wasn’t just hunger. The men and women of one of the empire’s premier mercenary companies had taken pride in their appearance. Now scraggly hairs grew on the male chins and the once lustrous manes of the women, of all styles, had long since given away to lanky and dank clumps of dirty hair. Desperation had set in and they all had long since given up their vain self-maintenance rituals.

Even their prized Kade mage, Nissa Sardonien, was not immune to the torturous march. Under the orders of their captain, she was being escorted to the Algardis encampment and there she would be under orders to perform whatever needed to be done that would end this battle and win the war for the Empress of Algardis. Nissa stumbled in front of her. Mud covered the back of her robes, from the tip of her braided hair down her back to her calves, which sunk into the muck with each labored step.

A small smile of determination crossed Sara’s face as she breathed heavily and took another step, placing one booted foot in front of the other. The heavy squelch of mud as she raised her feet was the only sound she made. The only sound they all made except for the occasional grunt and the numerous curses that rang out in the damp air. That was okay. The damn bog made more than enough sounds for all of them. Creatures she didn’t even want to think about cackled and cawed in the distance. Rain had started to pour from the sky days ago. Rain that seemed the one good thing to happen to the Corcoran Guard since they entered this godforsaken place. But they soon discovered that even the rain here wasn’t normal. The troops had watched in dismay life-giving droplets had been transformed in mid-air to a slick, oil-like substance. The same kind that rested like a layer of filth on every water source in the swamp. Sara was beginning to wonder how
anything
survived here. Let alone colossal predators.

This day she listened to the splash of unseen creatures as they entered the muddy waters to hunt. Sara knew they were surviving because these creatures knew the ins and outs of this swamp. They hid in dug-out caves, slunk stealthily on tree roots and branches high in the air, and paced through the dense vegetation like ghosts. And little-by-little they had picked off men, women, and elephants to dine on. Now just a skeletal crew of mercenaries remanded.

One of the carnivorous creatures had even loomed up like a monster from the depths of an algae-covered pool and eaten two of her fellow mercenaries whole before she could blink. She had no name for that creature. But she remembered jaws like long and pointed triangles filled with serrated teeth. That jaw, as big as her body, had gaped open in a maw of darkness while two beady eyes stared down the men surrounding its prey.

When it first appeared and ate one of their own, the mercenaries had surged forward to fight the beast. Not to save the man. Even in the instant after its jaws had latched closed, the warriors surrounding the beast had known that saving the man in its mouth would be an impossible feat. The creature’s mouth had slammed shut with such force that she heard the bones of the poor mercenary snap like a dry twigs, and his blood had gushed out from between the serrated teeth like a red waterfall. No, the mercenaries had surged forward to instead avenge their fallen foe. But they had all soon learned that the beast’s plated skin was stronger than steel, with ridged bumps along the spine that ended in a tail that had an armored ball at its end. It had swung the tail like a mace and crushed the chest of one woman with the indifference of a child that flung away a toy it no longer wanted.

That was the first time the mercenaries had encountered a creature of the swamp head on. Except the swamp leopard. Well, the leopard hadn’t attacked any of
them.
It had attacked their pack animal, lunging at the elephant’s shin in a calculated move. But this creature? This creature had eaten a human—a mercenary. The group had gathered their courage like a cloak about them. They may have been slowly starving for protein with glassy eyes and aching feet, but they still had segments of their pride. Their pride and their battle fervor.
Here
was an opponent worthy of the third division’s ire. They feared no monster, even one as big as this. And most of all? They were tired of being challenged and losing to unseen foes—human, creature, and
kith
alike. First, the Kades had ambushed them with not an enemy combatant to be seen. And now creatures—creatures she was half-sure were
kith
, but knew for a fact that they were at least beasts, if not magical ones—had been picking off mercenaries for days on end, like ghosts that haunted them under the cover of darkness. Now they had one fully in their sights. Now was their chance to avenge their fallen foes. So they did.

Their assault on the monster had been horrific. Not for it. For them. Their weapons were ineffective and bounced off its skin like dulled training swords on a wooden training dummy. Sara had briefly wondered if a mage attack would affect it. But she wasn’t going to waste her energy on the beast. The idea of hunting it had been discussed and quickly discarded, after all everything else they had encountered here had been either poisonous to the touch or noxious end to inducing vomiting upon consumption. This creature would probably be no different. As for the man he had consumed? He was already dead, after all. Apparently, neither were any of the other mages of the division, because none had bothered to engage it, not even the other battle mages.

In the end, the creature had casually bitten a man in half and slipped back into the deep waters like a specter that vanished in the side of the muddy strip of land they had been trudging forward on day in and day out. For a few minutes, Sara’s skin had tingled as she kept a wary eye on the still waters. She had known that even though they couldn’t see the creature, it was still there. Lurking. Waiting. But apparently it was full enough with its meal of one and a half humans that it decided to leave their presence shortly after. When she saw a v-shaped trail of water leading away from them, she and a good number of her comrades heaved an audible sigh of relief.

And they trudged on. That had been the first day. It had been twelve days since then, and the horrors they had seen had only grown worse.

That was half of the reason why no one had tried to save the war elephant. They had learned that these creatures were often more than they seemed and, quite often, seemingly invincible.

“The other reason no one else even bothers anymore? We’re damned tired,” Sara muttered to herself resentfully. “Tired of the attacks, and tired of defending ourselves without sleep. After all, how do you sleep when the very swamp itself is trying to kill you?”

Sara wasn’t joking about that last part. There was something about this land that made it treacherous for them all. The one time a land mage traveling with their division had remarked on the subject, he had said with a sniff, “The very land has been called upon to devour us.”

“By who?” Sara had asked.

He had looked over at her with a disbelieving look. “By the Kades, of course.”

Sara had shrugged, uncomfortable at arguing with him. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe the Kade mages weren’t perfectly capable of this assault. Look at the assault they had waged unfettered against them while the guard was on the road, after all. But it felt like a convenient excuse every time they encountered a problem to blame it all on the Kades.

Throwing caution to the wind, she had turned to the man and said, “And what if it’s not? What if it’s something else? Or someone else?”

“Who?” he had asked coolly.

Sara raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that your job? To find out who are our flora magic-wielding enemies?”

He straightened his shoulders with an eagle glare, “Mark my words, it’s the Kades, and this land will swallow us all at their very whim.”

He had been right about the last part at least. The next day, a sinkhole had opened up at his very feet and he had disappeared with nary a scream. The spooked soldiers around him had grown even more spooked with the vanishing man. Now it felt like Sara couldn’t turn around without a prayer being thrown in her face or a nervous man almost taking her eye out while he jerked his weapon. For the most part she didn’t lash back at the bumbling soldiers, they were afraid and they had a right to be. If moving out of formation and hacking at the vegetation made them feel more secure, then she wouldn’t stop them.

But the vegetation and the earth weren’t their only threats.

Creatures she wouldn’t dare call animals had risen and attacked them. They had lost forty good people to fierce one-on-one battles with the damn things. It wasn’t just one species. The whole bog was infested with birds, snakes, amphibians and shadow-like creatures with spiked feathers that walked along land and had drool-like yellow poison. It was that last shadow-like creature that had caused the most damage. It was fast and it only took a small bite for it to kill its prey. Slowly.

If you could call a paralyzing venom slow. Sara did because faster would have been a creature biting through a victim’s neck and severing a jugular artery. Fast and efficient. This was painful, debilitating, and unbearable to watch. Sara had nicknamed the creature the ‘
razor-billed dragon
’, because it looked like a land-bound dragon and had the beak of some of the more sinister avians she knew. It was certainly devious and deadly enough to be a dragon. Although she had a hunch that it bore no direct relation to the mighty Sahalian race.

From the way the creature poisoned its prey to the way it moved with an inhuman speed to bring about death,
this
creature was their most formidable predator. Not the swamp leopard, nor the swamp lizard that sank into the depths of the water. No, this creature that ran on land and disappeared like lightning was deadlier than either of those beasts.

Its razor-sharp teeth were able to pierce their armor, and its venom was fast-acting. After the poison set in, it caused the victim to succumb to fevers and shaking. The person was still mobile...for an hour or so. Then they couldn’t walk because their muscles would lock one by one, until finally they were paralyzed. Sara knew that that last stage was when the creature struck. Waiting to move in until its prey was helpless to defend itself. It was a coward.

So she used that to her advantage. The trick was to kill them before they had a chance to get within a few feet of you. Because even a drop of that venom on your skin was disastrous. The archers had been working double-time to combat them, paired with one or two soldiers who kept them guarded. Sara had been paired with Ezekiel.

She flashed back to when she had saved Ezekiel’s life in Sandrin and then once again in the skirmish.
Well, he’s certainly earned his keep since then
, she thought – her face darkened with pain.

Not her pain.
His
.

Ezekiel Crane had shot down ten of those creatures before one had slipped through Sara’s defenses.

Sara’s eyes turned to the right to take in the feverish and splotchy form at her side. Ezekiel had one hand latched unsteadily on her right shoulder and the other hand gripping a staff tightly as he struggled to lift one foot above the rising mud in an effort to keep going.

He had been bitten less than ten minutes ago.

They had fifty minutes until he was full paralyzed. Unable to walk. Unable to eat. Unable to drink. They had to reach safety before then.

He wasn’t giving up and neither was she.

E
very minute that passed was a minute lost in Ezekiel’s life. He didn’t have much time. Just like all of the sufferers of this poisonous creature’s bite. She could feel the energy draining out of Ezekiel as every step he took became harder. Mud clung to their legs, weighing them down, and Ezekiel was wheezing from the exertions. The effort to keep moving forward was taking a lot out of him, even though she bore the majority of his weight all while keeping her armor on.

“Let me go,” he managed to say through heavy breaths.

“No,” she said firmly.

“Sara...” His voice was fading out.

She stopped for a moment, ready to berate him. But the weakness in his voice halted her before sound could pass from her lips. For a moment, she felt compassion. So she softened her voice and counseled, “Catch your breath. We’re almost there.”

He chuckled through coughs. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she said in a tone of voice that hinted at the violence she would inflict if he tried to contradict her again.

Ezekiel leaned away so he could turn and stare at her with weary eyes. His paralysis wasn’t traveling the same path as it had the other soldiers struck by the razor-billed dragon. For some strange reason Ezekiel’s paralysis was only affecting the left side of his body. She had originally thought he would be like the others, with his feet showing the symptoms first. She had been told that first the flesh along the soles of the soldier’s feet went numb. The first half dozen to succumb had probably seen the numbness as a boon. No more aching feet. But the numbness hadn’t stopped there. Slowly, the flesh along their ankles and legs had begun to tingle and then lock-up. With each passing step, it would become harder for them to move forward—like it now was for Ezekiel—and eventually the muscles would stop functioning altogether. Preventing movement. Ezekiel’s left leg had begun to lag long before his right leg had been affected in any capacity. She knew that the final step in the creature’s predatory plan hinged on its prey’s vulnerability, which was why Ezekiel’s left side was currently strapped to her right like a three-legged human. The mercenaries had quickly learned that it stalked its prey until they couldn’t move anymore and then swooped in to devour their defenseless forms. Sara wouldn’t let that happen. They had also learned that it was just as formidable as the creature which had surged from the waters like a demonic angel. Its skin was as dense as armor, it was fast as lightning, and it regarded their attempts to kill with an almost contemptuous air.