Nine hundred square miles. “A hell of a swamp.”
“The Mire is sandwiched between the Weird and the Dukedom of Louisiana and the Broken and the state of Louisiana,” Erwin continued. “Most of it is mud and water, impassable and unmapped. The Dukedom has been dumping exiles into it for years. They’re too full of magic to escape into the Broken, so they simply stay there, stranded between the worlds.”
William raised his eyebrows. “A swamp full of criminals.” He would be right at home.
“Precisely.” Nancy nodded. “Spider is an urban agent. Nothing short of a dire need would drag him to the Mire, where he’s out of his element. There are a dozen places where things are heating up, but instead his crew is scouring the swamps. They’re looking for something. I want to know what it is and I want to own it.”
She didn’t ask much, did she? Just the moon and the stars.
“The Louisianans moved a detachment of Air Force wyverns to the border with the Mire,” Erwin said.
William grimaced. “They expect to airlift Spider as soon as he gets out of the swamp.”
Erwin nodded.
Whatever Spider was looking for had to be valuable if they were willing to park a wyvern for him.
A predatory light sparked in Nancy’s eyes. “The Dukedom of Louisiana wants a war, but they’re unwilling to risk it unless they’re certain of their victory. Spider has been trying to deliver the means to win this war for the last ten years. This time he must’ve found something remarkable. If the war starts and the Dukedom wins, every changeling within our borders will be murdered.”
“Don’t,” William warned. “The pictures were unexpected, but I’m not an idiot. I know what you’re trying to do.” Changelings had a harder time controlling their emotions. That was one of Hawk’s favorite tactics: rile up the changelings, get them angry with the scent of blood or a punch in the face, and send them into the fight to rend everything they came across. He was an old wolf and this wasn’t his first hunt. “Cheap tricks don’t work on me.”
Nancy smiled and he fought an urge to step back.
“I was right. You will do nicely. We will give you all of the support at our disposal. Weapons, technology, maps, intelligence on Spider’s crew.”
William showed her his teeth. “I don’t like you and I don’t like this mission.”
“You’re not required to like me or the mission,” Nancy told him. “You’re required to complete your task. That’s all.”
“Suppose I do this for you. What do I get?”
Nancy arched her eyebrows. “First, you’ll get vengeance. Second, I will owe you a favor. There are people who would cut off their right arm for that alone. But more importantly, you will know with absolute certainty that Spider will never kill another changeling child. Think on it, William Wolf. But be fast about it. Time is short.”
A cold drizzle sifted onto the swamp, blurring the trees and obscuring the narrow road. The sounds of three horses clopping merrily along blended with the noise of the birds and chirping of insects.
Given a choice, Cerise would’ve galloped. Instead she kept the pace slow. The last thing they needed was to blunder at full gallop into an ambush.
“It’s Sheeriles,” Erian said from the right. Slim, blond, he rode like he was born in the saddle. The feud between their family and the Sheeriles had taken his mother when he was eleven, and Cerise’s parents had raised him. He was more like a brother than a cousin.
“They have no reason to restart the feud,” Mikita boomed. Nature had forgotten to install a volume control when he was born, and he came with two sound settings: thunder and louder thunder.
Unlike Erian, Mikita rode as if he was afraid the horse would somehow escape from underneath his huge blocky body. Six-feet-five, two hundred and sixty pounds, none of it fat, he was almost too big to be a Mar. Hard to grow that large on a ration of fish and swamp berries, but Mikita had somehow managed.
“The Sheeriles don’t need a reason,” Erian said.
“They do and you know it. If they can’t show cause, the Mire militia will come down on them like a ton of bricks,” Mikita said.
Mikita was right, Cerise thought, as they rounded the bend in the twisted road. The Dukedom of Louisiana was very generous in supplementing the Mire’s population with exiles. None of them was law-abiding or peaceful. The Edger families stuck together, turning into clans full of half-starved locals with itchy trigger fingers. Feuds bloomed in the Mire like swamp flowers, and some of the old-timers threw around heavy magic. In their family alone, they counted four cursers and seven flashers, and then there were people like Catherine and Kaldar, whose magic was so specific they had no name for it. If the feuds had been left unchecked, pretty soon there wouldn’t have been anybody left in the Mire to feud with.
That was why the Edgers finally banded together and instituted their own court and their own militia. Now to rekindle a feud, one had to show cause. The Sheeriles knew this. The problem was she didn’t think they cared.
“They have all that money, and they managed to keep it through the years,” Mikita said.
Erian frowned. “What does money have to do with anything?”
“People who keep their money that long aren’t stupid. They won’t take risks unless they think things will play out in their favor. Sniping Uncle Gustave and Aunt Gen without cause is a hell of a risk. They know our whole family will be howling for blood.”
Cerise hid a sigh. Unlike the Sheeriles, the Mars were swamp-poor: they had land and numbers, but no money. That was how they’d earned their nickname: Rats. Numerous, poor, and vicious. The vicious part she didn’t mind, the poor part she could do nothing about, and the numerous part … Well, it was true. In a fight, the Sheeriles would lose hired guns, while she would lose relatives.
The thought made Cerise wince. Her father’s absence turned her into the head of the family. She was the oldest of his children, and she was the only fully trained warrior they had. If something did happen to her parents, she would be the one sending her family to die. Cerise caught her breath and let it out slowly, trying to release anxiety with it. This morning had gone from bad to worse in a hurry.
The path turned, and the decrepit husk of the Sene Manor came into view. Cerise’s heart skipped a beat. A lanky man stood on the porch, leaning against the porch post, his straw blond hair falling over his shoulders. He glanced up, his eyes light on a tan face, and a slow, lazy smile stretched his lips.
Lagar Sheerile. The oldest of the Sheerile brothers. They and their mother ran the Sheerile clan now, since their dad fell off a tree three years ago. Sheerile Senior had busted his head so hard, he couldn’t even feed himself anymore, let alone think. Served him right, too.
Behind her Erian swore softly.
Beside Lagar, Peva, his brother, rocked in a half-rotten wooden chair, whittling something from a block of wood. Above the two of them, the windows of the abandoned mansion stood wide open despite the rain. Men waited at the windows. She counted two crossbows, three rifles, and a shotgun. The Sheeriles had expected them and brought hired muscle. Paid top coin, too—the shooters with the Broken’s rifles were expensive as hell.
All together, the Sheerile brothers, the dilapidated house, and the rifles in the windows made a perfect snapshot of the Mire. Like some sort of twisted postcard. She just wished she could shove it into the faces of the bluebloods from Louisiana.
Peva slid from his chair, a tall gangly form on legs that looked too long. His crossbow lay next to him on a rail. He was so proud of the damn thing, he’d named it. Wasp. Like it was Excalibur or something. Peva reached for it but changed his mind. Decided not to bother, did he? Apparently, they weren’t enough of a threat.
Cerise stared at Lagar.
The door banged, and the third Sheerile brother sauntered into view, carrying Lagar’s sword. Arig, at eighteen, was the youngest and the dumbest. In a dark room in a crowd full of strangers, Cerise could’ve picked all three of them out in seconds. She had grown up knowing that one day she would have to kill the Sheerile brothers, and they knew they had to kill her before she did them in. She’d come to terms with it a long time ago.
Arig held the sword out to Lagar, but the blond Sheerile ignored it. They didn’t mean to fight her today. Not yet.
Cerise brought her horse to a halt by the porch.
Lagar gave her a short nod. “Lovely morning to you.”
“Same to you, Lagar.” She smiled, making an effort to look sweet and cheerful. “You boys lost?”
