I grunted. Crouched at the side of the bridge I could smell something, just a hint, beneath that fresh metallic tang of fast moving waters, something rotten. “East then,” I said. And we turned toward the trail leading east, a thin line of darker green amid the verdant woods, overhung with willow and choked by brambles. The thorns scratched at my boots as we rode.
The thing about the path less travelled is that it is often less travelled for a good reason. When that reason is not the dangers that haunt the road then it is the road itself. Sometimes it’s both. In Cantanlona the soft edge of civilization becomes very soft, so soft in fact that it will suck you down given a quarter-chance.
“We’re going through?” Red Kent stood in his stirrups frowning at the reed-dotted marshland stretching before us into a greenish brown infinity.
“Stinks.” Makin sniffed as if he weren’t getting quite enough of the stink that offended him.
Rike just spat and slapped at the mosquitoes. He seemed to draw them as if they just couldn’t tell how foul he was going to taste.
The Duchy of Cantanlona lies along what was once the border between two vast kingdoms, the bonding of which was the first step Philip took in forging the empire. It’s said Philip’s mother gave birth on that border, in Avinron, and being therefore a man of two lands he felt he had claim to both. It seemed fitting then that nothing remained of Avinron but a fetid swamp fed by a river aptly named “the Ooze.”
Our route lay through the marshland. Good reasons for it lay to either side. I led the way, on foot with Brath’s reins in hand. The Brothers and I had spent long enough in the Ken Marshes to develop a sense for uncertain ground. The vegetation tells the story. Watch for cotton grass, the first whisper of deep mud, black bog-rush where the ground will bear a man but a horse will sink, sedge for clean water, pimpernel for sour, bulrush where the water is deep but the mud below is firm. Sharp eyes you need, and watchful feet, and the hope that the warm swamps of Cantanlona are not too different from the cold marshes that border Ancrath.
Makin was right about the stink. The heat made it a high summer. An all-pervading rot encompassed us, the reek of putrid flesh and worse.
We made slow progress that day though we covered enough miles to make the way we had come look pretty much identical to the directions ahead, pathless, uniform, and without hope of end.
I found a place to camp where we might be sure of a full complement in the morning. A series of grassy hummocks connected by strands of firm ground offered sufficient room for the men and horses, though we would all be keeping closer quarters than perhaps we would like.
Grumlow set to cooking, using sticks and charcoal that he’d had the foresight to bring with him. He brought out his iron tripod and hung a pot over the little fire and crouched over it, trickling in barley atop strips of smoked venison, the steam rising all about him and dripping off his moustache and back into the stew.
When night fell it dropped heavy and moonless, swallowing all the stars. The swamp, silent by day save for the squelching of our feet, came alive in the dark. A chorus of croaks, whirrs, chirps, and wetter, more disturbing sounds, flowed over us from sunset to sunrise. I set a watch, though the embers of our fire gave nothing to watch, and when my hour came I sat with closed eyes, listening to the darkness speak.
“Makin.” I kicked him, wary lest he take off my foot. “You’re on.”
I heard him grunt and sit. He hadn’t taken his breastplate off, or his gauntlets. “Can’t see a damn thing. What the hell am I watching for?”
“Humour me,” I said. The place just made me feel that if we all fell asleep together maybe none of us would wake up again. “And why are you still clanking if you think this place is safe?”
Dreams took me before Makin could find an answer. Katherine walked them, the dead child in her arms and accusations on her lips.
The morning sun drew a mist from the pools of standing water. At first it hung a foot or two above the cotton grass, but by the time we were ready to move, the mist boiled around our chests as if it were ready to drown us where the mud had thus far failed.
Some stenches you get used to. After a short while you can’t say if they are gone or not. Not the stink of the Cantanlona Marsh though. That stayed as ripe after a day and a night as it did when the reluctant breeze first brought it to me.
The mist managed to make me sweat and give me chills at the same time. Wrapped in it, with my Brothers reduced to wraiths at the edge of vision, I thought for some reason of the woman and her brats at that remote cottage—the woman with her dead face and the children like rats around her calves. Isolation comes in many flavours.
“We could wait it out,” Kent said.
A splash and Rike cursed. “Mud past my feckin’ knee.”
Kent had a point. The mist couldn’t hope to hold out against the heat of the day as the sun climbed.
“You want to stay here a moment longer than you have to?” I asked.
Kent plodded on by way of answer.
Wherever the sun had got to, it was doing a piss poor job of keeping me warm. The mist seemed to seep into me, putting a chill along my bones, fogging my eyes.
“I see a house,” Sim called.
“You do not!” Makin said. “What
