The Eighth Warden Bk. 03 Ch. 17-18

"I'm sorry," Katrin said. "I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me any of that before?"

Shavala shrugged. "We did what we had to do. At least with the pirates, most of them lived, but I couldn't think of any way to save the men who attacked us outside Tir Shar. There wasn't enough time. They had to be stopped before they killed someone."

Katrin nodded. "I don't know what else we could have done. I made some of them run away—I could try that again next time."

"I'd like that," Shavala said. "I'd like it more if we don't need to fight them at all. It's not how things are supposed to work."

"Sometimes people just don't have a choice. Don't elves ever fight with each other? From the things Ellerie has said about Terevas, I thought they did."

"The dorvasta and nilvasta are different," Shavala said. "The tree bond makes ..." She snapped her mouth closed.

"Tree bond?"

"Never mind. It's not important." She couldn't talk about that with an outsider—not even with Katrin. "It still sounds like you feel guilty."

"No, not guilty," Katrin said, "but the three of us spend a lot of time together. Doesn't it feel like something's missing?"

"Sometimes, maybe," Shavala admitted. She'd grown closer to Corec and Katrin than to anyone else besides her family. It would be nice if there was more to it.

"You should come to our tent tonight."

Shavala bit her lower lip, then nodded. Before she could say anything, though, she noticed a shifting movement near a cypress tree behind Katrin, almost as if the tree bark itself was moving.

"Katrin, stay still," Shavala warned, keeping her voice low.

Katrin's eyes grew wide. "What?" she whispered. "What's going on? Is it a snake?" She tugged at the scarf Shavala had loaned her, making sure it was still in place protecting her head and neck from anything that might drop down on her.

It was difficult to tell the creature apart from the tree. It was two feet tall and stood upright like a person, but its arms reached all the way to the ground, its hands resting on the dirt. Its skin was mottled and gray, matching the bark of the cypress trees that grew everywhere throughout the swamp. Its eyes were solid black, and it stared unblinking at the two women. It had pointed ears that had swiveled toward the sound of their talking, like a cat's.

"Can you hear me?" Shavala asked softly. The creature didn't react other than to turn its gaze her way, moving slowly enough that she wouldn't have noticed anything if she hadn't already been watching it. Whatever it was, her elder senses could barely distinguish it from the surrounding plant life.

"Can what hear you?" Katrin hissed. "If it's a snake, don't talk to it!"

"It's not a snake. I think it might be one of those boggarts Josip keeps talking about."

Katrin jerked around and looked down where Shavala had been staring. When she caught sight of the creature, she shrieked and jumped away. The boggart—if that's what it was—jumped too, and in a quick flurry of motion, it was gone.

Josip and Niklo had insisted on leaving out small amounts of food each each night for the boggarts, just beyond the range of the mage lights and as far from the water as possible to avoid attracting alligators. The food was always gone in the morning, but for two nights in a row, Shavala had watched from up in a nearby tree as a medium-sized cat of a species she wasn't familiar with stole the meal from off the plate. She'd begun to believe the boggarts were a hoax, but now she'd seen the evidence with her own eyes.

She laughed. "Let's go back. The others probably have supper ready by now, and you can tell them all about your adventure."

Katrin glared at her.

#

Although the daylight was gone and the fire had burned down to embers, the camp was still brightly lit. Katrin had convinced Corec to add more mage lights than usual after her encounter with the boggart. She sat with him and Shavala on a fallen log, quietly tuning her harp and listening in as the others made plans.

"If we keep going de way we're going, we should reach de mere tomorrow," Niklo was saying.

"Mere?" Boktar asked.

"One of de lakes in de center of de swamp. Ye'll not get de horses across dat."

"Is there a way around?" Ellerie asked, looking back and forth between Niklo and Leena.

Niklo shrugged. "We can try nord or sout, but it'll take days. Dere's a ferry dat goes to all de villages around de mere, for dem dat don't have boats, but I don't know if it'll take de horses."

"Leena?" Ellerie asked.

The Sanvari woman checked the map she held in her lap, then closed her eyes to concentrate, a blue rune glowing on her brow. Katrin had been grateful to finally find someone else who was just as bad at concealing the mark as she'd been in the beginning. Katrin had gotten better at it—eventually—but it had never seemed fair how easy it was for the others to learn to hide theirs.

"The fastest way is to continue east," Leena said. "If we go north ..." She opened her eyes and checked the map again. "If we go north, I think we'd have to go all the way up into the mountains before we'd find another route the horses can follow. I can't find anything to the south."

Corec said, "You can take horses on a ferry if you're careful and the deck is flat. If the boat's not big enough, we can make several trips and take a few across at a time. We'll just have to hold onto the lead ropes so the horses don't step off into the water. Some of them might need blinders to keep them calm."

"Shavala, could you help with the animals?" Ellerie asked.

Shavala nodded.

"Then let's continue east and get a look at this ferryboat. If it doesn't seem like it'll work, we'll go the long way around."

The discussion broke up then, and everyone went their separate ways.

"I'm going to go talk to Leena before she heads to her tent," Corec said. "I want to know if the men who attacked her in Sanvar were Sanvarites. The ones here were locals. I'm not sure what's worse, Cordaeans traveling all the way to Sanvar to try and kill her, or a group that has members on both continents." He sighed. "I hate how we never know what the hell is going on. We'd just started to get a handle on Rusol, and now there's something new."

Katrin nodded. None of them had really gotten to know the Sanvari woman yet. She spent most of her time with Ellerie or Razai, neither of whom were at the top of Katrin's list of people to socialize with.

"Are you going to play tonight?" Shavala asked Katrin, nodding to the harp.

"No, but I need to practice," Katrin said, feeling guilty. With the general eeriness of the swamp, she hadn't been in the mood for playing, but they'd been there for a week now. She needed to get some practice in soon.

Shavala nodded. "I'll go help Nedley move the picket lines, then." Between the alligators and the mud, they couldn't risk using hobbles on the horses and mules, but picketing them in one spot wouldn't provide enough vegetation to subsist on. The picket lines had to be moved repeatedly whenever the group stopped, to ensure the animals could find enough to eat.

Once she was alone, Katrin tried strumming her harp, but it wasn't the right instrument for what she really wanted to play. Throughout the day, she'd found herself growing more and more inspired by the constant birdcalls that had surrounded them ever since they'd entered the swamp. The noises were discordant, but there was something almost musical hidden underneath. The problem was that there were too many different birds calling out at once, with nothing to link them together as parts of a whole.

Katrin set aside the harp and picked up her flute instead. Putting it to her lips, she blew a few experimental notes, then tried to play along with the birdcalls she could hear. They were different now, quieter after dark, but they never stopped entirely.

In the distance, a songbird trilled, while close by, another bird cawed repeatedly and a third made a rapid hooting noise. Over it all was the sound of repeated shrieks. Even Niklo hadn't been able to say if the shrieks were from a bird or something else.

Katrin picked out the melodies of the different calls, replicating the sounds as closely as she could with the flute. But repeating sounds that were already present was pointless. What she needed to do was to weave them all together into one song. She began a new melodic line, playing from one birdcall to another and bridging the gaps in between.

It helped, but it wasn't enough. There were several melodies, but none of them harmonized with the others. If only she could play the harp and the flute at the same time.

In Circle Bay, she'd once seen a bard make an audience hear an entire orchestra and choir, even though he was only playing a single instrument. Could she do the same thing? In her head, she imagined adding harp music to the song she was constructing, then used her bardic abilities to push the sound out to anyone who could hear. It took her several attempts to get it right. In the past, her bardic illusions had always been intended for her listeners, not for herself. She'd never before had to listen to her own illusory sound in order to adjust her playing.

The flute danced between the different melodies, adding in the missing beats, but it was the sound of the harp that took everything and turned it into a new, harmonious whole. As Katrin continued to play, she got better at predicting how the birds would vary their calls over time, and the song improved.

She caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. Turning her head slowly, she saw the faint outline of another boggart standing near a cypress tree, its gray skin almost indistinguishable from the bark.

Katrin suppressed her sudden burst of fright and continued playing. The creature didn't seem like it was going to attack. It just stood there, its pointed ears swiveled toward her as it listened.

Then another boggart crawled out from behind a leafy bush and sat cross-legged on the ground as if it was a person. This one was easier to see, not blending in as well against the dark green leaves. Its eyes met Katrin's, but it didn't react. Farther away, a third boggart stood up out of a pool of water. It crouched down on drier ground, its head swaying as it listened.

Was the entire camp surrounded by the creatures? Katrin laughed at the thought, interrupting her song. Then she started playing again. If the creatures wanted to hear her music, she'd let them.

#

Corec opened his eyes to the darkness of the tent. Something felt odd—and it wasn't just the extra person sleeping next to him.

There was a whisper of movement, and he slowly reached over Shavala's chest to the side of the tent where he kept his weapons. Passing over the sword, he grabbed his knife as quietly as he could. Then he sat up in a rush and cast a mage light spell, the sudden brightness almost blinding.

There was a small, gray-skinned creature crouching over Katrin. With a scrabbling motion, it disappeared, leaving the tent flap swaying behind it.

"What ...?" Katrin asked groggily, using her hand to shield her eyes from the light. A garland of yellow flowers lay across her stomach.

"What's going on?" Shavala asked. She'd propped herself up on her elbow, and looked awake and alert.

"There was something in here," Corec said, his heart pounding. "Some sort of animal."

Katrin sat up, clutching the flowers. "Where did these come from?"

"They were here when I cast the light spell."

She held up the garland. "The stems are tied together," she said. "Are you sure it was an animal? Did it have long arms?"

Corec blinked. The sleep hadn't completely left his mind, and he was having trouble following her thoughts. "It was small. I didn't see its arms. It was next to you, and then it was gone."

"It must have been one of the boggarts from earlier."

"How do you know?"

"What else would it be? An animal isn't going to bring me flowers." She draped the garland around her neck. "The boggarts liked my music. I guess this is their way of tipping me."

"It was creepy," Corec said.

Katrin grinned. "Oh, they're not that bad. They were very polite."

Corec tossed his knife back over to the side of the tent. "If you say so."

"They seem intelligent," Shavala said. "I don't think they're animals at all."

"That doesn't mean they're allowed to come into our tent."

"We'll tie the flap closed next time," Katrin said.

Corec raised his eyebrows. "Next time?"

"Well, they liked my bird song. I wonder if they'd like my other music. The rest of you have already heard everything dozens of times. It's nice to have a new audience."

Corec shook his head and laughed, letting go of the tenseness he'd felt since seeing the strange creature. Then he suddenly remembered why Shavala was in the tent with them. Katrin seemed to know where his thoughts had gone, giving him an embarrassed smile. Only Shavala seemed unfazed.

"I ... uh ..." Corec started. "Is everything all right?" He watched Katrin closely. It was the first time he'd been with another woman since he'd met her, and he didn't want to hurt her. She'd never seemed to mind the flirting Shavala had done, but this was something else entirely.

"It's fine," she said with a shrug. "It was ... different, but fun."

"I had a good time," Shavala said simply. "Should I go to my tent now so you two can be alone?"

"No, you should stay," Katrin insisted. "But we need to get a bigger tent. It's too cramped in here."

"A tent?" Corec asked. "You want to keep doing this?" The two women had never really explained what they wanted. Katrin had mumbled something about elven customs, then convinced him to kiss Shavala, and after that, things had just happened.

Katrin said, "Maybe not every night, but I don't want this to be our last time."

There was a scratching noise at the tent flap, and then Treya poked her head in. "Corec, Katrin, it's your shift." Her eyes widened when she saw Shavala. "Oh, ahh, I'll leave you alone." She ducked back out.

Corec grimaced. Treya wasn't likely to gossip to the others, but how was he going to explain it to her?

#

It took twenty days to make it across the swamp, but according to Ellerie's map, they'd ended up less than a hundred and fifty miles from where they'd started. The route they'd taken was circuitous, sometimes requiring them to almost double back to find a way through.

Ellerie brought her horse to a halt once she'd cleared the tree line. It felt strange to be riding again after almost three weeks of leading the animals.

Gazing across the landscape, she could see farms directly ahead of her, their fields already tilled and planted for the year. The high peaks of the southern Skotinos Mountains lay to the northwest. She checked the map again, and then her compass.

"We're still heading northeast," she said. "That old stone road we found led northeast, too. How far from Betan was it?"

"About fifteen miles, I think," Boktar said.

"Here, take a look at this." Ellerie nudged her horse close to his and handed him the map. "Wouldn't that line up with the road we're on now, if it had gone straight through the swamp from where we found it?"

"You think we're on the same road?" he asked.

Leena was close enough to hear them. "I can't find the road anywhere, but there are a few of those same paving stones buried below us," she said.

"It must have fallen apart," Ellerie said. "Maybe people hauled away most of the stones to build something else, and you're feeling the ones that got left behind."

Bobo rode up to join them, using his hand to block the sun from his eyes as he looked to the east. "How about that?" he said. "I guess not all of the winged snakes were hunted down after all."

In the distance, the unusual creatures could be seen darting back and forth as they chased each other playfully in the sky above the fields. From this far away, they really did look like snakes with feathered wings.

"We've got to be in the right place," Ellerie said, more certain than ever. "But we're farther north than I was expecting, and we're heading northeast rather than east. If this really is what's left of the swamp road, I think the route we're following is going to lead us straight into the barrens."