Swamp-Songs in the Distance

[Rance]

It, it c-cut her but she s-said she'd h-heal, Cherny had told her.

And yet, Gloria Wynsee had not seen Noura the wildling in a week.

She began her search in the most accessible places: in the loft above the stables, where she found naught but the scattered remnants of bedding where two boys had once chosen to sleep; in Myrkentown at the wildling's usual haunts, none of which yielded an answer; and finally, at the doorstep of Solena's manor, where she was greeted by a hired cook whose impatient tone informed the seamstress that no girl donning a skull had been present for some time, and that on future visits, would she please make sure her garments were not in such disrepair.

In her departure, Gloria made use of a particularly suitable gesture that Murrukh had taken the time to teach her.

* * * *

It had cost her three apples -- three -- just to ply the broad-shouldered bison-like beast into being free of the stables. He ambled alongside the girl at the insistent tug of his reins. Though his eyes were starched and clouded with cataracts, it was not his sight the seamstress sought to employ--

"Ugly damn beast," Ser Woger said as they lingered outside the livery at Darkenhold, "but his memory's a right library. That's what made him -- whatever the hell he is -- such an efficient beast in his day. And senses as sharp as a whetted bit of steel, he's got. 'Cept for his eyes. They're shit. But give him a scent from Westenford and he could show you the way there from Thessilane. Might take you a few weeks, mind you, but you'll get there. No complaints, no difficulty. Just apples. Hairy bastard loves his apples, if you're willing to chew them into paste for him."

"What's his name," Gloria asked. "Has he got one?"

"Too ugly for one. Too ugly for niceties like that, girl."

She crossed her arms. Her lips loosened into a frown. "Caliir," she said abruptly, as if the name had been simply waiting in the folds of her brain to be born at that moment. "Everyone deserves a name, Ser Woger, regardless of their aesthetic. I am going to call him Caliir."

Seven apples later, she still held the twist of fabric from one of Noura's old dresses against the bearded creature's flaring nostrils. The sky had darkened over several hours. Healthy afternoon blue faded beneath the humid veil of dusk. Summer grasses surrendered to a thick and soupy marsh beneath her heels, with mud often devouring her legs to her akles. She tucked her skirts into her waist-sash and trudged alongside the snorting beast. Hissing bugs and belching frogs sang swamp-songs in the distance. Trees lost their luster, and the forest became a hot, wretched expanse of vines and mists that seemed to throb and gleam as the lingering light of day waned. This was a dead land, resplendent with the acrid odor of water left to stand too long without being disturbed.

At a cairn of great, gray stones, Caliir stopped and thrust his head against Gloria's bulging stomach, seeking out the final apple in the oily sack hanging from her waist.

"Of all places," she told him around a mouthful of fruit, crushing it between her brittle teeth and spitting it into her hand for him to lick away. "Of all places, you bring me here. I don't even know where we are. Did -- did you even stop to consider the kind of things that might live here?"

But Caliir did not move, not anymore. He kneaded his cloven hooves into a bank of green mud and enjoyed his apple.

With her lantern hanging from the crook of her left elbow, the seamstress unsheathed her longknife and hesitantly squelched her way through a soggy pit toward the crop of stones. Two particularly hearty rocks hid a black smear beneath them, a thicket of shadows that gaped as wide as a giant's sleeping mouth. The cave's entrance was set into a broad hillside. She held out her shaking arm and spilled some of the lantern's light across the opening. Gnats whispered in a cloud around her, occasionally landing in her ear with a piercing hiss. She swiped them away and squatted beside the opening, knife-point trembling in front of her.

She called into the cave. Though her voice was a whisper, it carried on the thick and humid air like a warcry, repeating itself in echoes that diminished in the unseen distance.

"Noura," Gloria said. "Noura, are you here?"

...here?

...here?

[Guppy]

The yawning mouth of the cave had a grinning, gleeful watchman settled in front of it.

Beatrice the skull had been wedged into one of the crevices to greet those that happened upon it. She laughed at Gloria from her lofty perch, as only an all-encompassing silence stretched from the entrance of the cave. Damp, cool air drifted from inside and the press of moist air muffled any noise that might have been present.

Unnaturally chilled water would drip from small stalactites if Gloria happened to venture inside. The darkness in the cave would likely require for the young woman to pause so that her eyes might adjust. She would notice that there was an abrupt turn just within and the small, loft glimmer of fire's light beckoned from further in.

A small camp fire had been scraped together with the meager supplies she could gather in her state. The wildling, features pale and sickly, was propped up against the back wall of the cave. Her fingers, clumsy, ungainly digits polishing pointed canine. There were three siblings of the one in her hand, all dangling from leather straps to fashion necklaces. The girl looked exhausted.

Pale eyes lifted to her friend, framed in darkness, and then returned to her task. Blood - too much, far too much and long-dried at this point, clung to her dress and a bulge of a make-shift bandage showed underneath.

[Rance]

Grinning, grinning, silent laughter, missing some of its teeth, that ivory mistress, and the eye-sockets were nests of black and--

"Oh!"

At the furthest reaches of lantern-light she saw Beatrice, the human skull, staring through the humid darkness at her. But the skull, for all that it started the seamstress, was a beacon of hope, the wild scrimshaw patterns scraped into its cranium giving no room for doubt that this was the place. Caliir had been right, Gloria realized; his wet, bristling nostrils had picked out the wildling's scent from the lawn of the Broken Dagger and followed her here, into the beating, muddy heart of a swamp.

She scrambled amid her damp skirts down into the throat of the cave, her heels sliding along patches of moss and smooth runnels where centuries of water had carved pathways into the stone. The point of her dwarven longknife scraped against the rocks and dug long furrows in the mud.

When she skittered around the inner elbow of the cavern, she saw the stalactites first. They dangled precariously above, deposits of stone and black crystal that had shaped themselves at the behest of moisture seeping down through the rocks above. They were, however, no distraction from Noura, whose withered form Gloria first confused for a carcass propped against the wall. She strode forward, her skirts barely missing the glowing ashes of the fire. That was when she noticed the blood smeared old and brown along the lifeless folds of the wildling's dress.

Her face smeared in black sweat and darker shadows, she squatted beside Noura, set down her knife, and reached for the sticky strip of cloth at the other girl's abdomen.

"You're hurt," she said. "He -- he said you were hurt. I didn't know where you were."

Outside, Caliir nickered.

[Guppy]

Beatrice offered no apologies for startling the seamstress. The bleached skull with its scrawled, inked runes merely looked on, unmoved, as the young woman pressed further.

Noura's hand darted out to brush aside Gloria's skirts from the flames. Those eyes raced upwards to find the other's questioning gaze as Gloria came to crouch at her side. Probing fingers searched the bandaged wound cautiously. The wildling reached out and impatiently hitched up the portion of her skirts to allow the seamstress to untie the torn strips of fabric. Her skirts' hem was a little frayed, given that they made up the majority of said bandage.

Dried blood clung to the rough fabric, but fresh crimson flowed when it was gently pried from the gaping, infected edges of her jagged laceration. The blade that made its mark upon her had not been well-loved before the wolf found it. The wildling barely looked up from her task, but soon attempted to loop the length of leather around Gloria's neck to dangle at her collar. The wolf's yellowed, sharp eyetooth swung against her throat.

"Son has not been moved by my sacrifice. He hates me still. Soon, you will be busy with motherhood and you, too, will leave me to my own devices," she began, voice thickened into a croak with lack of use.

"I want It back."

Solitude frightened her more than wolves. More than infected wounds. More than death.

[Rance]

Her remaining fingers had trouble working the knots out of the makeshift bandage. As she peeled the blackened fabric away from the wound, she gasped. The blood had coagulated, turned to lumps and chunks, a mucky ichor. The lips of the laceration were moist and pale, desperate for cleanliness. She could smell the infection, a foul offal that had nestled itself in the depths of the wound. Vomit burned in her throat and in the back of her nostrils.

A yellow tooth touched the crease between her breasts. She leveled her eyes on the wildling. Her trembling digits rose to steady Noura's chin. She placed a soft kiss on the other girl's burning cheek.

"Don't act like a bitch, Noura."

Though the words were harsh, their delivery was not; it was a resigned statement, a quiet command that rang with relief.

"And if this is what happens when left to your own devices, I ought to -- to swaddle you along with my child when it comes. The bad air's gotten into your stomach. There's nothing I can do here, not with one hand. It needs cleaning and attention. You're as warm as the heart of a fire."

Gloria pried away the rest of the stained fabric and tossed it into the glowing embers. She worked quickly, because to work slowly was to recognize the dire truth of the situation: Noura's belly reeked like a compost; little pinpoints of pus gleamed on the seamstress' fingers; the wildling's flesh was alabaster-pale and furnace-hot. Another day, another few hours, and--

She put her longknife back into her waist-sash and shifted her body to help move the wounded girl. Her girth and strength, in this case, was a boon -- it would have been difficult to deny her grappling arm as she sought to help the wildling stand on her feet.

"Caliir's outside," she said, ignoring the talk of sacrifice and motherhood and It.

[Guppy]

The sullen expression on her face belied the illness that paled her cheeks, that heated her blood. The kiss against her skin felt cold, despite Gloria's sun-kissed blood and a shudder raced down her spine unbidden.

The bandage was thrown into the flame and it roared as it consumed the cloth. It fascinated the girl enough that she wished to see what damage it would do to her fingertips, but she managed to ignore that impulse.

A glance was hazarded to the mouth of the cave where an impatient Caliir waited on the two young women. She stood with the seamstress' help, which made her skirts tumble down to her knees once more. The dress that soon clung to the moist edges of her wound.

"Why? Does Caliir want to be my only friend?," she drawled, not fighting the other girl as she was half-carried towards the waiting creature.

[Rance]

"Yes. Caliir," she said to the delirious girl. "Your only friend. Daring Caliir, who braved combat at your side against the wolf like the squire he is. Resilient Caliir, nearly five months fat with child, who ignored sense to follow a whim and retrieve you."

It was a feat on behalf of the seamstress to be bastion, knife-carrier, and light-bearer all at once. She clutched the weakened girl against her ribs as they clambered out of the mouth of the cavern, the lantern rattling and winking at her elbow. The marshes were a gray, rotten flatland sprawling out beyond them, scarcely dotted by hills or life. Vines dangled from the trees like dead lace. The evening had crept quickly into the swamp, bringing with it a suffocating humidity. Gasses, green and brilliant, were alight by some wonder of chemical and moisture in the air. Sweat stickied the girls' bodies, milked out of their pores by the muggy heat.

"Caliir and Solena both chanced the abandonment of all luxuries to come find you. Watch your step," Gloria said, breaking her sarcasm with instruction. "The mud."

She knew that place; that oily, gnarled pustule in the mind that too-often folded itself open at the insistence of doubt and fear. But this was not the time to soothe it. Perhaps the Rememdium; perhaps anywhere but here.

Caliir watched the approaching girls with sluggish eyes. But upon nearing him, Gloria noticed an oddness about the beast. He leaned forward as if suffering the throes of exhaustion, his hooves sinking carelessly into the frothy earth. He nickered again, the sound muffled and belabored.

"I know you're tired, my boy. We -- we found her," she said, nudging Noura up against the beast's wiry-haired flank. "We found her, and--"

That was the moment when Gloria saw it perched upon Caliir's back. In the dark, it was hard to make out, but the seamstress saw enough that her spine jerked into stillness. She saw the eyes first, black and reflective, segmented like the thousand facets of a finely-cut gemstone. Its six legs were like broken tree-limbs, helping balance its spindly body on Caliir's spine. Its head was thrown back in satisfaction. The insect -- for that was the closest comparison that could have been made -- had a proboscis as long as a shortsword, and the point of the appendage was thrust between Caliir's massive shoulderblades, sunken into the flesh. It sucked, it chittered. Fluid rolled through the transparent snout and into a swollen abdomen.

The hawk-sized mosquito, its wings thin and fine, stopped feeding.

With near human recognition, it looked to Noura and Gloria both.

[Guppy]

"Caliir. My truest friend. Though his obsession with apples is a little off-putting," she whined in the seamstress' ear as she stumbled along at her side. Her breath came in short little puffs of air, warm against the shell of Gloria's ear. She attempted to nuzzle her cheek against the warmth at her side, all the same. "He also stole my bird," she complained, sounding more delirious as she expended energy to move.

The rest of the necklaces had been tucked into the pouch on her hip. Their rightful owners would get them later.

As they breached the entrance to the swamp, Noura's hand lifted to catch the green fey-lights that danced around them. Unsuccessfully. Sweat collected at the hollow of her throat.

Upon seeing the weakened equid, the wildling struggled to free herself from Gloria's firm hold to stumble over to the beast. She would take his muzzle between her palms and kiss the velvet of his nose sweetly.

The wicked mosquito sitting upon his haunches did not register with the girl holding herself upright with one hand fisted in the wired hair of the creature before her.

[Rance]

He also stole my bird.

Caliir's eyes were sightless and dull. They leered into Noura's as she clasped his bearded, saliva-crusted jowls. His gaze was tired, paralytic; it begged for nothing he could articulate, and his hot breath came in staccato blasts from his nostrils.

Noura didn't see it, did she? The insect, the bug, didn't--

"Noura," Gloria whispered, reaching out to snare the girl and try to yank her away. The seamstress' usual dark complexion had faded into something lighter, illuminated by the green gaslight of the swamp: she'd gone pale, the color of a sun-baked bone. If she managed to pull Noura away, her instinct was to wrench the wounded girl behind her, to separate her as much as possible from the insect devouring the fluids from Caliir's body.

Her first instinct was not the knife, but the lantern. If she missed with a blade, her boy was right underneath the perched insect. Gloria grappled the polished lantern from her stump, wrapped her knuckles in hang-ring, and swung. Light flickered and winked against the fog. The base of the lantern crashed down against the mosquito's bulbous abdomen.

"Get off!"

The blow barely fazed the massive insect. The sword-point tube of a mouth wetly retracted from out of Caliir's back. It whipped its head around to face the girls, a spatter of Caliir's loose, watery blood painting the ground. Its enormous, phantom-like wings lifted the mosquito up into the air. Caliir slumped. With its legs dangling uselessly and its wings beating as a blur against the mists, the mosquito hovered nearer to the girls.

Other pairs of wings in the swamp came to life. Behind them. Beside them. Meanwhile, mossy figures, vaguely human in shape, began to emerge from the shallow depths of the waters in the swamp. Shoulders and bulging heads broke the opaque surface. Hands bristling and spongy with mold and plantlife slapped onto the rocks. A hand reached up from the mud beside Noura's ankles and clasped onto her thin leg, mud and soil given life--

A face carved out of deadwood and bark smiled up at the wildling.

It tugged her, tried to pull her away from Gloria, down into the marsh's pools.

[Guppy]

Caliir implored the wildling and she patted his cheek in comfort, not understanding. She did not see the insect made of nightmare that clung to the beast's back until Gloria reached out with trembling hand to snatch her away. The movement very nearly upset her balance entirely and it tugged at the ragged edges of her wound. She hissed in displeasure and pain, jerked protectively behind the seamstress. Bleary eyes peered from behind her at the now-hovering creature.

"Oh," she offered, simply at its approach. Its wings blurred as it hefted its considerable weight from the beast's back, the noise they gave off a great humming vibration that made her want to clamp her palms over her ears. How it held itself aloft, engorged as it was, she could not fathom. She reached down, groping blindly for the dagger in her boot, and swayed at the sudden movement. She blinked rapidly as tears gathered, a wave of nausea overtaking her. She was not well. Not well at all.

She jerked her head up as more noise joined the demon with its soulless gaze. Her eyes widened as more wings began to beat against the fetid air.

Seconds later, a clawed hand reached out to take hold of her leg just below the knee. Her gaze swam as she glanced down into that smiling, serene face. She stooped to peer at the face, more curious than afraid. "Well, hello. And no thank you," she offered gently, her own digits seeking to push and pry at the fingers wrapped around her limb. "I've drowned once before. It would be tedious to relive it."

Fear was not forthcoming.

[Rance]

The shadow continued to clamber out of a pit of mud and offal that had only moments before been ankle-shallow. The sockets of its dripping eyes were occupied by little flickers of wisplight. On bent knee it extricated itself from the muck, its flesh a dripping mass of wet grasses. Pauldrons of moss and weeds covered its shoulders. Its mouth was full of jagged splinters. The bipedal mass throbbed swelled, its body a collection of gaseous pods and plantlife. As Noura's fingers pushed and plied at the beast's own, snakes of water-logged vines emerged from its knuckles and sought to wind around her ankle and knee. It challenged her balance, trying to drag her down.

Other figures began to peel themselves from the brown water, awakening.

With its other arm, encased in mold-ritten bark, the marshbeast raked for Noura's head.

Several feet away, Gloria scrambled back as the mosquito lunged forward, its rapier-point sucker daring a few thrusts. The girl shrieked, swinging the lantern up in a great arc. Candlelight flickered out. Steel struck the underside of the needling proboscis. With only one hand, she couldn't reach for her longknife even if the thought had occurred to her -- instead, she scuttled back until her spine struck a fragile, long-dead treetrunk.

The insect swept forward and stabbed.

Gloria jerked her head aside almost too late. The edge of the mosquito's natural weapon pierced through the folds of her bonnet and struck wood. Forelegs reached for her chest and shoulders while wings hummed in excitement. No time to think, to question the validity of the threat hovering inches away from her face. The seamstress kept swinging with the heavy lantern, beating the segmented abdomen.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the wet, dripping bodies unfurling from the guts of the swampland around her friend.

[Guppy]

The creature hefted itself from the muck and mire of the swamp before her very eyes. While fascinated with its appearance, she was not similarly keen on the vines ensnaring her ankles. They tightened and tugged and she found herself unbalanced enough to land hard on her rump. The mud splattered her already-ruined dress and she let out to low huff of surprise as air was stolen from her lungs. The action, however, managed to allow her avoidance of the bark-encased paw swinging towards her swimming head. Through no fault of her own, granted.

Noura's wounds festered like the swamp, threatened sepsis. She had naught to eat or drink for some days. She was depleted enough to be an easy victim for the creature and its brethren that threatened. And if Noura were a normal girl, it was very likely that she might have perished here. Gloria might have, as well, without her aid.

But despite the wildling's weakness, magic was as old as the hills. It knew how to react and her mind abruptly cleared. The runes upon her flesh began to glow with their unnatural light. It cast its sickly light upon her pale skin and it worked to destroy the creature from within. That low hum, rivaling the insects' droning noise, pulsed in the air. Death and decay swept from the girl like a plague, her gaze narrowed upon the creature who sought to pull her into the swamp to be forgotten.

"Gloria, go back to the cave, if you can! We need fire!," she tossed over her shoulder.

[Rance]

The mosquito struggled to disengage its mouth from the bark.

The lantern was useless. Its candle had been snuffed, but the heavy iron frame had not yet been compromised.

We need fire.

Gloria let the lantern fall into the crook of her elbow as she clumsily reached for the knife in her hip-side scabbard. The insect buzzed and chattered, scraping at her face and neck with its legs to gain enough leverage to free itself--

Steel glinted in the fey-light. Once, then again, then again, dwarven metal drove into the insect's bloated abdomen from the side. The seamstress' fist held the knife the way one might the handle of a churn: without precision, but with inspired force. She let out a frightened cry as brittle bug-flesh crunched and split. A geyser of black fluid -- was it blood, was it Caliir's blood? she wondered -- burst out of the mosquito's deflating midsection. She tried to pull away, but the ribbon of her pinned bonnet was still tied under her chin. She hammered the blunt edge of her stump against the dying mosquito's proboscis, which broke free with a snap.

The bog-shadow was illuminated from within by Noura's summoned light. Its insides glowed, a brightness that flickered in the hollows of its mouth and eyes. Its hands freed her. It staggered back, swiping ineffectively with a fist as a few of its organic pieces started to crumble, splashing back into the brackish water. But two more of the muddy constructs surged toward Noura, unafraid of the glow that hummed inside of her weakened body.

The creatures moved not by the merit of legs, but instead as if they'd simply grown from the depths of the water, mud and moss made solid at their midsections as they skirted across the surface. The nearest one extended its webbed hand at the wildling and discharged a coiling webwork of vines at her--

"Look out," the seamstress shouted.

Newly freed, Gloria darted for cave. Her heels skittered on the slick rocks. Two more mosquitoes buzzed for her. She spun in a sloppy, desperate radius, her knife flicking out blindly. Its edge scraped sparks out of a stone that formed the cave's inner cheek. A needle-fine sucker tore at the girl's sleeve, splitting fabric at its seams. The knife jabbed, hacking at a pair of beating wings, ripping their membranes. She struck again, puncturing a jewel-like eye.

Pursued by another one of the hawkish insects, the seamstress vanished into the cave.

[Guppy]

The heavy insect putting all of its tiny limbs against the tree and attempting to tug its proboscis out of the rotten wood made an amusing picture, but terror distracted the both of them. Life and death lingered in the shadows, drew in sharp around them and passively watched to see who would emerge victorious. The outcome did not matter, just the entertainment.

One of the bog creature crumbled, releasing her in the process. Her eyes glowed nacreous in the moonlight and her runes surged. The magic carried its entropy further, the blackened, necrotic area growing into a solid ring around her.

The vines lashed at her, laced around her forearms and she stared passively at the approaching creatures - a goddess trapped in mortal form. Lips pursed with displeasure and she twisted to catch hold of them as tightly as they clung to her. Pulled taut. Her fingers tightened punishingly and she tugged. The death-magic climbed, racing down them as if it were electric current. The knife in her opposite hand glinted as she slashed at the coils meant to restrain her.

Gloria vanished behind her, into the cave and the fire smoldering beyond. The wildling started forward with determination, to engage in grappled combat with the creatures.

She had never been so furious.

They made convenient targets for her ire at her own circumstances.

[Rance]

And cling to her they did -- Noura's magic lanced down the vines, scorching the living wood into black ash. But the moment one of the mossbeast's tentacles licked against her flesh, it brought with it an onslaught of sensations and words that pried into the static inside the wildling's mind. The nearest creature's knothole of a maw opened wide and prattled out a ghastly inquiry:

"Imprisoned? She is imprison--"

Snkt. Noura's knife ripped through the vines, cutting them free.

They did not stop rising. When one fell away, another emerged in its place, and then another, unfolding from the mire splashing at Noura's feet. They constructs were of varied heights and girths, some wearing more bark for armor than others. Flimsy as they were, they simply seemed to coalesce from the mists of the bog, their elongated fingers hanging with tangles of moss.

At the back of a converging gaggle of them, however, there was a larger beast that towered over the rest, nearly two meters at its fullest height. White and black mushrooms sprouted from its shoulders and elbows. Something more sentient lingered in its distorted face, a mask of understanding and amusement. Gnats and flies whisked and flitted around the crown of its head in a cloud. The mass emitted enough phosphorescence to liven the swamp around them with a glow. The green gaslight borne from within the crags and creases of its body cast longer and more ominous shadows.

This time, two beasts lunged at Noura, each hoisting arms formed of knobbly tree-limbs. Down they came, snarling through the air, wanting to crush, shatter, destroy her.

* * * *

Gloria darted into the heart of the cave. Her knees buckled under her skirts when her heels slipped across a patch of mud. She crashed to the stones on her hip, twisting enough -- an instinctive lurch at the last moment -- to protect her belly from the fall. She scrambled backward, pushing off from her feet, her knife still shaking in front of her. The remaining mosquito came forward in jerky, ratcheting thrusts, illuminated by the red embers of Noura's fire.

With a frightened squeal, she batted away the oncoming proboscis as it probed for her again.

The insect hummed back to reconsider its approach. The girl drove her heel into the fire. Its warmth scorched her leather sole. She kicked ashes and sparks at her winged attacker, the tears in her eyes scorching from the proximity of the fame. Quick, quick, she chanted in her brain, stuffing her longknife into her sash and daring the blistering heat of a half-burnt log with her only hand. Why fire, Gloria wondered -- but had no time to answer. She sprinted back up through the throat of the cave, the smoke-blind insect whipping about to trail her--

"Noura!" Gloria cried out as she emerged, her dress-hem smoldering, the smoking, burning shaft of wood held up like a beacon.