The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (21 page)

Just as the words escaped his lips, a flash of black scaled serpent with orange light emitting from its fanged maw leapt from the water. The mouth opened, showing a single glowing eye back where the tongue should be, hundreds of curved white teeth before it, and it swallowed Luc Lefty, lantern and all, in one swift lunge. At least twenty feet in length, with no appendages to be seen, its mouth closed with but a boot showing, and crashed back into the dark waters before anyone could do much as blink and stare.

“
Swampeye!!!
Dump the pickled fish, hurry!!!” Reanier yelled back in the darkness, Boersin already in motion.

“I assume you mean to feed its appetite and flee, correct?” Kendari was low now,
Shiver
in his right, the holy crossblade held reverse in his left. He saw more motion, another ripple in the water heading toward the aft of the boat.

“No, they hate the vinegar, the smell, and…
No!!!”
Reanier turned just as Kendari slashed once, then again, then a third cut with the heated longsword that cut a lunging swampeye in two. The rank pieces flopped, one fell off the boat into the water while the other twitched on the deck spreading a slimy sheen all over.

“Easy enough, what is the problem?”

“
Fool
of an elf! They are
cannibals
, they smell the blood of their own a mile away! You never kill a swampeye unless you are close to land!” Reanier trembled, searching desperately for another lantern as Boersin dumped the pickled carp overboard.

“Now you tell me. Splendid.”

“
Ssshhh!
” Boersin got low, Reanier as well, the boat dead in the water.

The sound at first, was as if frogs were croaking at one another in the distance, then it grew louder. Heavy moist breathing accompanied the croaks, like someone with a bad cold trying to relieve themselves of some mucous, all around. Splashes in the water rippled in every direction, then the glow. Four, twelve, twenty or more orange glows with beady black dots in the center. They all hovered it seemed, then bounced up and down in the darkness. Slimy croaking hisses issuing to one another, the swampeye telling each other something, taunting one another almost. They circled the boat, eyes plunging into the murky depths then reappearing in another locale, sensing their meals.

“We are all dead men.” Reanier lit the lantern and brought himself to a crouch and peered over the edge of the boat. Boersin grabbed the lid of the barrel he had dumped, holding it from the handle like a toy shield.

“Enough of this, you there, bald one, start rowing.” Kendari stood on a crate, crouched low, watching every glowing eye in the marsh.

“You are insane. You have doomed us all, and now you taunt them?” Reanier dangled the lantern above his head, slinking back down, taking cover inside the boat.

“You can always run, I won’t stop you.” The cursed swordsman smiled. He heard the oars plunge into the water, felt the gentle rocking of the fisherboat, and could feel
Shiver’s
heat on his face.

Two swampeye dove out of the water, fanged maws hissing for a meal in their lunge over the boat. One slash with his right and a quick slice with the left, and two heads were severed. Three, then two more, the black serpents flew like giant arrows for Kendari. He was twisting, sidestepping, swinging left, then right, ducking, then twirling his longblades every direction. Watery insides flew onto the deck, hissing turned to screeching pain, and the water seemed to boil with dead serpents. They continued their frenzy on the boat, and on each other. He was one second ahead of them, listening for the rush of water, sensing the sudden glow of orange light from their one eye, then moving but inches and cutting with whatever blade was closest. The boat continued to move, the water filling with the dead, the eaten, and the hungry swampeye.

Boersin hollered in pain, a small serpent hit him and latched onto his shoulder. The boat careened as he wrestled with it, then it stopped as Kendari took its head with Shiver. Before any gratitude could be shared, another marsh serpent from the left took him, managing the shoulders and head into its jaws. Kendari spun, two more landed on the deck near Reanier. He plunged his blade into one, but the other managed a hold on the boat owners’ legs.

Kendari knew when enough was enough. These men were not warriors, and saving their hides would only leave him alone on a boat where it would take two to navigate the river. He ran, over the tail of the swampeye devouring Boersin, past the now two mashing their teeth into Reanier, and leapt off the bow of the boat. Two swampeye lunged for his feet, missing by hairs. Kendari landed into muddy riverbank, never slowing until he reached a banyan tree. Blessed feathered crossblade in his teeth, Shiver being used as a spike, he climbed, hand over sizzling plunge of steel, until he was near the top. The swampeye continued hissing and looking, but the most agile of them could not come within twenty feet of his position up the tree.

“Bastards don’t climb, do you?” He caught his breath, watching as the fishermen, their boat, and everything in it was devoured within minutes of his escape by no less than thirty more of the scaled horrors.

The glowing eyes watched him, tree to tree, branch to branch, yet eventually they gave in to easier meals of each other. Kendari waited, hours, until the hissing was long gone and behind him. He set foot back on the ground, and headed north, only small rays of moonlight to guide him, yet it was as if he knew the way. Having never been in Kar Nossos before, he was sure it was something else guiding him from afar back to Stillwood. For the Nadderi, that though was more unsettling than the swamps he now traversed, all alone.

Exodus III:IV

Highland Bluffs, Northern Willborne

“I cannot breathe…have to stop…I am too old…for all this…running in the hills.” James slowed, sweat running into his eyes, he sat on a large rock and caught his breath. Sunlight battered down like an unforgiving penance upon the reaches and crests in the high hills.

“Only for a minute, knight of Chazzrynn, there are fifty slavers with hounds and a small army of Devonmir behind us. Maybe more.” Shinayne took a knee, resting, meditating. They had been running for nearly two days since Gwenneth’s spell got them but two steps past the gate. The Lords of Devonmir had sensed her magicks, dismissed her illusions, and they had been spotted and on the run ever since.

“Do you still hear the voices Shinayne?” Gwenneth, tired as the rest, settled back to the ground from her draining flight overground.

“No, not a whisper since yesterday.” She looked over the cliff, still seeing a horde of black dots on their trail, a half day behind at best.

“Which way are your mountains?” Saberrak sat hard, his body fully healed from injury somehow, and not even truly tired. He looked to the enchanted belt with the fist of Annar upon it the buckle, the gift from the dragon of Soujan Mountain that she said would give him tireless stamina. The bracelet she had given him was taken by the slavers, or so he assumed.

“Right there, my horned warrior, right there.” Zen pointed with his helm, he had taken it off at the base of the hill and still had it in his hand. It had been baking his head inside from the heat, despite the magicks supposedly imbued into the steel.

“The clouds? Are they past that?” Saberrak stood, squinting, trying to see anything resembling a mountain.

“Those are not clouds son, those are the peaks of the Misathi over the clouds there. Covered by clouds on top, yet sweltering heat at the bottom they say. I would say four more days to the foothills, a day after that, Deadman’s Pass.” Azenairk Thalanaxe smiled, knowing they were one step closer to finding the lost mines of his forefathers.

“You say it with a smile, yet they named it for a reason dwarf.” Gwenneth Lazlette smiled in return, feeling she was also one step closer to whatever treasures the archmages left behind in the lost city of Mooncrest so many thousands of years ago, if this place was anything like what the dragon had said.

“Bhah nonsense! Names do not scare me off Gwenne, and in the mountains I am home. I will keep ye’ safe, do not fret a moment there.” Zen laughed, though she was the last one here that ever needed protection.

“Any sign of Kaya?” Saberrak had asked Shinayne four or five times over the last two days and nights. He had hoped she made it out with the Harlian Capitan, as they had. He had expected, against the reality, that she would have met them here north of Devonmir. The answer was the same somber one each time, but he asked anyway.

“No, not her or Norrice or the men with them. All I can see is our pursuers. I am sorry.” Shinayne had been looking often, her hopes the same as the minotaur’s.

“Why is it so hot here, is it just me?” James drank again from his waterskin, streams of sweat still plaguing him.

“By my best estimate, it is the month of Uhmm, the month of the dragon, therefore the middle of summer. We are further north, so it gets much warmer as we go, James. In Kilikala, this heat is a pale comparison to what we experience.” Shinayne looked again, the dots still on their trail, headhunters slowly climbing higher into the Willborne wilds.

“It has been so long since I even kept track of the year, let alone the month or day.” James emptied his waterskin, the remaining liquid drenching his face and beard.

“It is Sirday, third week in the month of Uhmm, and the year is three hundred forty five.” Gwenneth rattled it off as if she had a calendar before her very eyes.

“That would mean I am thirty seven years, just recently. Thank you Gwenneth. Now I see why I am so tired.” James stood, breathed, trying not to think of more running or the lost years he had not been counting.

“Try bein’ sixty four lad, and having shorter strides and all, and I’m not complaining. Summon your strength James Andellis, Vundren bless your legs.” Azenairk put his helmet back on, grinning toward the distant caps of the Misathi.

“I am not tired in the slightest, at one hundred fifty three. Now may we move along, our pursuers are doubtfully going to rest and reminisce as we do.” Shinayne raised her chin a bit higher, smiling in the hot sun that scorched the bluffs.

“Very well, Gwenneth, how old are---“ James was looking right at a raised hand.

“A lady never tells, only offers. Be sure, I am younger than all of you and that is all need be said on the matter.” She smiled, concentrated, and resumed her hovering flight.

“You count years by what, the seasons that pass?” Saberrak seemed confused.

“By the winters, yes, in the south if you do not have a calendar to follow. There are thirteen months, three of winter, three spring, three of summer, one harvest month, and three autumn. Four weeks made up of seven days each makes a month. Three hundred sixty four days a year. Out of curiosity, how old are you gray one?” Gwenneth felt responsible for anything to do with mathematics, writing, or anything involving learning, her growing up in an academy left many instincts. She assumed Saberrak had no idea of such things.

“Eleven winters.”

“You are only eleven years old? How is that possible?” Gwenne was baffled, looking at the seven and a half foot beast of a horned warrior, who seemed rather well grown and mature for such an age, despite their differences.

“I fought in the arena my first time at seven seasons, escaped nearly four winters later. The oldest minotaur in Unlinn died at thirty one years, and he could barely eat anymore the last two. How old do humans live, anyway? And elves and dwarves?” Saberraks statements put a somber cloud over the company, everyone deep in thought on many things involving life, time, and each other.

“Oldest man I heard of was one hundred ten, an old sage in Hurne.” James marched on, head down, not wanting to think that his friend had less than a few decades left of life. Shame hit his throat, knowing he had wasted half a minotaurs’ days drunk.

“There are elders in Kilikala that are nearing their eight hundredth year.” Shinayne lowered her chin a bit, feeling sadness creep over her. She quickened her pace up the hills.

“My father lived to be over two centuries, but some dwarves last until nearin’ about two hundred fifty on occasion. I knew this priest once, he was---“ Zen felt the stare from Gwenneth, a stare that said
be silent now or else
, without a word. Zen picked up his steps to try and catch Shinayne and James, quietly. “Well, time to climb then, look at that hill.”

“Seems that minotaurs just don’t live long then, eh? Someone has to be the first to go, just let me go out with my horns low, the enemy defeated and bloody, and a full stomach.” Saberrak the gray huffed out his chest, striding up with the elf, laughing to keep up the spirits of his friends who obviously had much on their minds now.

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His hand was trembling, the feather quill gave it away. He looked up toward the woman he had known since birth, reluctant to sign his name to the parchment that would place her in power over the kingdom of Willborne. It was not right, he shook his head, trying to maintain his breath. He felt the stares of a red minotaur, a burned priest of the old customs, and Lady Katrina. His lordly blood knew she had a small claim, descended from her father’s birthrights to the throne, yet he would never have guessed it would be her to take the crown, or even dare try. And never had he or any of the nobles present at Willborne Keep here and now, dreamed that Rynnth, the dragon of Willborne, would ever awaken.

“Lord Caullin, you are thinking much on the matter. There are twelve lords to sign, and ten already have. What is it that perplexes you?” Katrina beamed her red unearthly gaze into the face of the old man. She stood as a soldier, at attention, helm under her arm, more intimidating than any of them could recall. She knew it, her glare and her presence were different, more than human.