of the buzzing insects who rose to greet them, knowing that the pests would be far more numerous once they climbed down the steep hillside.
The Brackens extended as far as they could see in either direction. The shiny open water marking the main channel of the Upper Vingaard was just barely visible, three or four miles away. The escarpment extended along the entire length of the river valley, and the tangled, forbidding swamp was a constant barrier between the base of the bluff and the river. The distant trail of the plains road and the ford the gnomes-and many travelers-had used was far away, below the place where the two rivers merged.
“Do we have to go in there?” Dram asked, scowling.
“We came this far,” Jaymes drawled, scratching his chin. “Why not see things through to the main event?”
“The white lady said Salty Pete might still be alive in there?” Carbo asked dubiously. “How can she know such things? We saw him get dragged off by the big black draco!”
“The White Lady told me she’d heard of a gnome held captive in there,” the dwarf said bluntly. “She didn’t know his name-but thought it might be your brother. Said he’s been there for a couple of years. The timing is about right.”
“Yeah. We lost Pete two years ago,” Sulfie said hopefully.
“I’ve learned to trust her,” Jaymes said with a shrug. “She’s surprised me more than once.” He glanced at the sun, which had cleared the eastern horizon. “We should get moving-if we’re fast, and lucky, we might be in and out of there before sunset.”
By now, the four travelers were fit, well fed, and reasonably well-rested. After leaving the Vingaard Range, they had spent a few weeks evading the patrols of knights that rode vigilantly across the plains. Traveling by darkness and finding hiding places-a herdsman’s hut, a clump of brambles, streamside caves-before each dawn, they made their way eastward and south from the Vingaard Mountains down to the river of the same name. Then they had followed the flow south until they reached this broad convergence.
The two gnomes remembered the route they had followed when they departed Dungarden, and now they found themselves in the same fateful area. Their goal lay before them, in all its unappetizing sprawl and decay. Even the smells were daunting-the stench was more than just the miasma of rot and stagnancy. There was a metallic, smoky overlay to the odor that bespoke of something more sinister than death.
“The ford we crossed is over there, to the left,” Carbo noted. “We didn’t go into this swampy stuff when we came from Dungarden. The wagon would have sunk right down, without a decent track, you know, but the road goes past the swamp, not into it.” He mopped his bald pate with a grimy rag, shaking his head at the ugly memories.
“Tell us about the attack,” the warrior said.
“Well, there’s the road. You see it coming down from the far bank? We trundled down that hill, twenty gnomes on two wagons, each pulled by two oxen. We came to where the road goes into the river there, then we crossed. It’s a good ford, shallow with a gravel bottom. Then the road comes into the woods along the edge of the swamp down there-it’s kind of built up with a stone bed, so the wagon was doing all right. That is, until the dracos attacked.”
“You keep calling them that. You mean draconians?” Dram pressed.
“Well, they made me think of draconians, but they were bigger-not dragons, but sort of like a composite of dragons and draconians. They spat acid, though, and killed the two oxen hauling the first wagon. We all raced to get into the second wagon and ran away, but Pete didn’t make it out.”
As he recounted the tale, tears glimmered in his eyes, and listening nearby, Sulfie shivered.
“Dragon spawn?” Dram guessed, shaking his head, looking at Jaymes.
“Likely,” the warrior agreed. He looked at Carbo. “Were they all black?”
“Yep,” the gnome recalled with a shudder. “They were the blackest, scariest things I ever saw! They hissed and roared, and that spit-it burned the fur and the skin right off the poor old oxen.”
“But your brother-you didn’t see him get killed?”
“No. One big draco-you called it a dragon spawn? — grabbed him up by the neck and ran off. He cried out just one time. The others came after us, and we had to flee. As soon as we got out of the trees they stopped chasing us, but Pete wasn’t making any more noise, so we concluded that he was killed.”
Sulfie spoke up, finally. “If they have Pete, then we have to go get him out of there. I’m not afraid of any big lizard!”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Carbo agreed. He went over to his sister, looked at her seriously. “Don’t be getting all hopeful. Remember what we saw.”
“Yes,” the female agreed, but she raised her chin in determination. “Remember the White Lady, too. She wouldn’t lie!” she declared, glancing at Jaymes and Dram, emphasizing that her assessment did not necessarily extend to present company.
“You guys coming too?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jaymes replied with a small nod.
Dram huffed and scowled. “Well, if Pete knows how to finish the damned compound so it can do something besides fizzle and smoke, then I’d like to hear about it. But I do hate mosquitoes.”
The human grinned. “Once the dracos start swarming, I guarantee you won’t even noticed the bugs,” he remarked.
Sulfie’s eyes were wide, but she wrapped her little arms around herself and started down the grassy bluff. The others followed and approached the moss-draped trees that marked the edge of the Brackens. The sunlight seemed to dim, and a thick, grayish haze lingered in the air, masking the brightness-though not the warmth-of the sun. If anything it was even hotter at the base of the hill, and the air was thick and steamy.
The mosquitoes were thick here too, a steady whining drone in their ears. The companions also heard birds cawing angrily to each other and a chorus of croaking frogs. A myriad of smells greeted them, none of them pleasant. The sooty, metallic stench seemed almost asphyxiating. The swamp was a green-black wall of dark, mossy trunks, vines and creepers, with thick ferns sprouting from the ground.
No obvious path presented itself, but Sulfie led the way, pushing away some vines and stepping between two ancient tree trunks. The others followed. In single file they plunged into the trees, trying to move soundlessly, surprised as the noisy frogs abruptly fell silent. The ground was wet everywhere with pools of stagnant water, and sometimes they had to hop from one gnarled tree root to the next. A large snake slithered across their path. Something bigger splashed in the water nearby, and they hurried on.
Deeper and deeper into the swamp they progressed, pushing vines out of the way, ducking under creepers, edging past hooked thorns. By the time they had advanced two dozen paces, sunlight was but a distant memory. Now they couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. The mosquitoes swarmed over them.
They came across another snake-this one a black, venomous viper that coiled menacingly and raised its wedge-shape head, hissing. Jaymes pulled Giantsmiter from the scabbard on his back and brought the huge blade down with a single chop, cutting the snake into two wriggling segments. They pressed on in the sucking mud. The warrior held his weapon upraised.
Sulfie slipped off the gnarled root of an ancient cypress, sliding into what looked like shallow pool. With a little gasp of dismay she sank to her waist and began to settle deeper. She clawed at the root, then grasped Dram’s strong hand. Grimacing, the dwarf set his feet and pulled the gnome free. She was covered in mud and nearly gagged at the leeches wriggling on her leggings-but swatted them off. Grimly she rose to her feet, nodding when the dwarf said he would take the lead.
The smells grew stronger, swamp gas rising in choking clouds as their feet disturbed long-dormant layers of rot. A stink like carrion made Jaymes gag, and he held a handkerchief across his mouth, blinking away tears as he strained to see through the murk. Still that metal-smoke scent permeated everything, growing stronger as they penetrated deeper into the Brackens.
“Hsst!” said Carbo, drawing a big sniff through his wide nostrils. “Do you smell that smell?”
Jaymes nodded, his nostrils twitching. “Yes. Smoke, but not from wood.” Indeed, the vapor smelled bitter, acrid, more like something raised from a foundry than a campfire.
“That’s Pete!” cried Sulfie. “I’d know that stink anywhere! He’s busy cooking his stuff!”
“Stuff?” Dram asked.
“Yep. We each had one kind of stuff, Pap taught us about. Like my specialty is the yellow rock.” She gestured
