The Steel Remains

ON THE SOUTHWESTERN FRINGES OF THE SWAMP, THE LAND GREW slowly less hostile to human use, and apparently to life of other kinds as well. It started with the odd mosquito bite and sparse clouds of flies rising around their boots as they plashed through marshy portions of the path. Then, slowly, birdsong began to seep into the silence, and a short time after that Ringil started to spot the birds themselves, perched or hopping about in plain view on branches and fallen tree trunks. Increasingly, water gave up its unpredictable claims to the earth, ceased to ooze up out of the ground wherever they stepped and confined itself more and more to creeks and inlets. The path they walked hardened up; the ever-present stench of the stagnant pools receded to an infrequent wafting. The ground rose and folded itself, while the sound of flowing water over rock announced the presence of streams. Even the sky seemed to brighten as the threatening storm crawled off somewhere else for a while.

Like many other things in Ringil’s life, the oppressive stillness at the heart of the swamp had not seemed so hard to endure until he walked away from it.

They followed one of the creeks as it turned into a river, stopping to rest at frequent intervals along the bank. After a while, Sherin was able to walk by herself, though she still shrank against Ringil’s side whenever any of the dwenda came close or turned a blank-eyed gaze on her. She didn’t talk at all, seemed in fact to be treating the whole experience as if it might at any moment turn out to be a hallucination or a dream.

Ringil sympathized.

Seethlaw, for his part, was almost as silent. He led the group with a minimum of verbal and gestured instruction, and didn’t speak to Ringil any more than his fellow Aldrain. If he’d selected the other dwenda who accompanied them, Ringil had not seen him do it. Pelmarag and Ashgrin simply fell in beside them as they crossed the Aldrain bridge, and another two dwenda he didn’t know were waiting for them at the other side. Brief snatches of conversation went back and forth among these four as they walked, but Seethlaw was not included, and didn’t seem much to care.

At twilight, they came to a scavenger camp built beside the creek.

“There’s a ferry across,” Seethlaw explained as they stood under trees at the edge of the little knot of cabins and storehouses. “And from there, the road bends northwest. We’ve come this far south to avoid the worst of the swamp, but the ground from now on is a lot easier. It’s a couple of days’ walk to Pranderghal, that’s a fair-sized village. We’ll get horses there.”

Ringil knew Pranderghal. He’d watched its original inhabitants driven from their homes and onto the road south, back when it was still called Iprinigil. He nodded.

“And tonight?”

“We spend here. The ferry won’t run now until morning.” Seethlaw grinned unpleasantly. “Unless you want me to bring the aspect storm and find a way around in the marches.”

Ringil held down a shiver. He glanced at Sherin. “No thanks. I don’t think either of us is up for that.”

“Are you quite sure?” The grin stayed. “Think about it. You could be home in Trelayne in a matter of days instead of weeks. And it won’t feel like days anyway; it won’t feel like time at all.”

“Yeah. I know what it’ll feel like. Give it a fucking rest, why don’t you?”

They went into the only inn in the camp, an earthen-floor-and-straw establishment with a dozen trestle tables and a long wooden bar at ground level. There was a staircase against the far wall and a railed landing overhead with doors leading off. They forced their way through the din and press of bearded, unwashed-smelling men to the bar and procured rooms for the night. Ringil saw no obvious change in Seethlaw or the other dwenda, but they’d evidently cast some kind of glamour about themselves, because no one reacted to their looks or outlandish garb. The innkeeper, a thickset, swarthy individual hard to tell apart from his clientele, took coin from Pelmarag with a curt nod, bit into it and pocketed it, then gestured toward a trestle table in the corner near a window. They took their seats and were served a hog-rib dinner along with tankards of thick-foamed ale shortly thereafter. It all proved surprisingly digestible, at least to Ringil’s stomach, though he saw the dwenda shooting one another wry glances as they chewed.

He found he couldn’t remember what they’d eaten in the Aldrain marches. Only that Seethlaw had supplied it, magicked it forth from somewhere, and it had melted like the finest cuts of honeyed meat in his mouth, like the most sought-after of Glades cellar vintages on his tongue. Beyond that . . .

Even that . . .