reeds and tall grasses at the shore before stepping out into the knee-deep muck and slogging up onto dry land.
Freya followed, and took her two knives from her belt. The sharpened bones felt strong and solid and certain in her bare hands. The blades were still fresh, still new, taken only a month ago from the legs of a mountain goat high in the hills above Logarven.
A month ago.
Freya squinted at the empty houses in the shadow of the rune stone.
A month ago everything was fine. And there were no reavers. At least, not in my world. My world was perfect a month ago.
Wren jogged into both houses and came out again just as quickly. “There’s no one here, and no sign of people living here anymore. My parents must have taken everything with them. Clothes, tools, food. A long time ago, I think. A year at least.” She nodded and heaved a sigh. “That’s good. They must have gone south. I just wish they’d told me.”
Freya nodded. “Sure.” She glanced around the small island again, but there was nothing to see or hear but the wind, the grass, and the stones. “We should get going.” She put one of her knives away.
A frog croaked.
Wren hesitated in the open doorway of the one of the houses. “I used to play here and watch my father come in with the day’s catch.”
Freya put her other knife away and waded into the reeds toward their boat. “Wren?”
The girl paused a moment, then turned back toward the lagoon with a glum nod.
Freya swatted a few flies away from her face and heard another frog croak. It was a very loud croak. She turned slowly to look down into the thick reeds and grasses. A few paces away in the shallows there was a round, wrinkled lump. Gray and green, it looked like any other slimy rock at the water’s edge. The lump shifted and she saw that it was indeed a very large frog, at least as large as her head, with stiff clumps of wiry black hair standing in a line down its spine. It swiveled its eyes.
Freya swallowed.
Those aren’t its eyes.
“That frog has ears,” the huntress said calmly. “Why does that frog have ears?”
Wren sloshed to a halt in the shallows and peered into the tall grasses at the green-gray mound with the wiry hair. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
The frog waddled slowly around to face them, swiveling its bulbous black eyes and its triangular black ears toward the two women. It croaked again, very loudly, and a second croak answered it from a few paces farther down the shore, and a third one answered that. Soft, wet, sucking sounds echoed down the beach as the frogs shifted and crawled about in the shallows.
Freya reached down to the boat and turned the floppy thing around, replacing it on the green-scummed waters beside her leg. “Come on, let’s go.”
Wren nodded as she waded out the last few paces and took hold of the boat’s side.
“Ow!” Freya whirled around as a sharp pain invaded her thigh, and she saw the long pink tongue of the closest frog stretched out across the marshy waters and stuck fast to her soaked trouser leg. The tongue pulled on her gently, tugging on her clothes, and the frog began to float closer to her, dragging itself through the tall grasses as it folded its hideous tongue back into its head. But the tongue popped free with a soft squirting noise and then raced back to its mouth. Freya pulled a knife free as she glared at the frog.
The frog lifted its body up a bit higher in the water, focusing its gold, unblinking eyes on her and flicking its hairy ears free of the clinging algae. Its throat bubbled out and in, heaving another loud croak across the lagoon, and a dozen more answered it, and the answers sounded very close, and came from every side.
“Into the boat, move, move,” the huntress said softly.
Wren tumbled gracefully into the front half of the boat, which bent and flopped around her body as she folded her skinny legs in front of her. “Okay, your turn.”
But Freya didn’t move. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the huge amphibian squatting in the muck just a few paces away, and it stared straight back at her with its flat golden eyes. Its whole face was prickled and spined with wiry black and white hairs, there was something hideously wrong with the way it bent its long spotted legs as it rose up a little higher out of the water, standing so that its belly just barely broke the surface. The frog slowly parted its fleshy gray mouth, opening it wider and wider, until its lips curled back to reveal its red, bleeding gums and the rows of yellow fangs ringing its soft jaws.
Freya stumbled back and grabbed the side of the boat as the huge hairy frog leapt at her with its fangs dripping around its open mouth. It flew up out of the water toward her chest, and then its tongue burst out and flew at the huntress’s face.
“Don’t let it bite you!” Wren shrieked.
Freya ducked and slashed at the frog with both knives, one flashing up to skewer the creature’s mouth shut and the other slashing down to hack off one of its long, crooked legs. She whipped her arm back and hurled the frog off of her knife, throwing it over her shoulder into the water. Freya straightened up in time to see Wren let loose three small stones in quick succession from her sling, each one whipped from the woven strap with only a moment’s pause to reload and re-clasp before the next stone was whistling across the lagoon.
The frogs began croaking louder and faster, and clumsy splashes echoed all around them as the water churned with fat green and black bodies. They lurched through the muck, sometimes leaping and sometimes walking on their too-long legs toward the women.
Freya grabbed the back of the boat and shoved it toward the mouth of the lagoon and the wider lake beyond. The soft muddy bottom fell away beneath her feet, and Freya clutched the warping, sagging side of the reed boat as she kicked and paddled to push farther out from shore. Wren knelt in the bow, hurling stone after stone at the surging mass of bloated, hairy bodies swimming after them. The croaking became a roaring, unbroken drone as hundreds of cold-blooded throats joined the chorus. Freya felt something bump her leg and she nearly screamed, but she kicked and thrashed and when she looked over her shoulder she saw nothing near her.
“I’m running out of stones!” Wren shouted over the croaking.
Freya had no breath to answer. She’d pushed the boat out past the stone walls that marked the end of the lagoon and the island and she could feel the water growing a bit cooler now with every stroke. But her arms and legs were burning and aching, and the green algae slime coated her whole body, weighing her down, dragging her back.
The croaking grew a bit softer, a bit farther away. Still Freya kicked and paddled and gasped for breath, spitting the warm muck away from her lips as it trickled down her face. Wren grabbed her arms and Freya shook her off, but the girl said, “It’s all right, it’s over, they’re gone!”
Freya twisted left and right, only able to see a short distance with her eyes bobbing just above the waves, but she couldn’t see any frogs or splashes, and the sounds of the croaking had faded into a distant echo within the vast stone bowl of Delver Island.
They’re gone.
Freya kicked and jumped and crawled up into the floppy reed boat with Wren tugging at her slick, wet clothes. They fell into the boat together and lay still for a moment, chests heaving as they raced to catch their breath.
Freya grinned. “Don’t let it bite you?”
“Yes. So what?” Wren sat up and wiped her hands on her skirt. “It was perfectly sound advice.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
They both laughed, and after a moment Freya sat up and began paddling with her hands, steering them around the edge of the island toward the western shore of the lake.
Wren shifted around to help with the paddling. “They had teeth,” she said softly.
Freya nodded. “Yes, they did.”
“Why? Why did they have teeth, and ears, and hair?”
Freya looked back at the mouth of the lagoon, and saw only the dark waves lapping at the gray shore of a quiet island. “Maybe the whole world’s gone mad.”
Wren shivered. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
Freya laughed again, a tired and shaky laugh, and she wiped her wet slimy hand across her mouth. “Everyone
