Ashok slid off the nightmare’s back and took a breath to steady himself on his feet. The others were taking stock of their surroundings. Skagi rubbed the bark of one of the trees. It came off wet in his hand, and the smell of decay filled the air. “Looks pretty on top, but underneath everything’s dying,” he said. “We’ll find nothing to eat in there.”
“Assume everything is an illusion,” Vedoran said. He crouched to examine Ashok’s leg. “This needs to be seen to,” he said.
Ashok looked down at his leg and for the first time was able to see all the cuts, the half-melted shards embedded in his flesh. He bled from dozens of these small wounds, and where he didn’t the skin was blackened from burns. His hands were raw and throbbing from where the nightmare had thrown him into the fire.
The beast stood quietly beside him, his attention fixed on the bog like an enemy he wanted nothing more than to devour. The nightmare’s foul breath steamed the air, and he pawed the wet ground.
“Take this,” Vedoran said, pressing a small vial into Ashok’s hand. “We get two of these draughts apiece, no more.”
Vedoran handed the rest of the vials out to those that needed them. Chanoch bled from a gash above his eye, and Skagi’s green tattoos bore patches of black, but none of them were seriously wounded. Indeed all of them looked alive through the eyes in a way they hadn’t during the dust storm. The tension that had built up over their long journey had vanished.
Skagi and Vedoran compared burns and jested at their size. Vedoran laughed easily and accepted Skagi’s slap on the back when the shadar-kai accused him of running like a slug.
“Why did the storm stop?” Chanoch asked abruptly, stealing the good humor. “If she’d kept it up, she might have hacked us to pieces.”
“No, she wouldn’t have,” Ashok said.
“Once we saw through her ploy, she knew we’d get here,” Vedoran agreed. “She’s prepared her next offensive. She’s waiting for us now.”
“Where does she get all this power?” Cree asked. He stood on a raised hillock a few feet away. “I can’t see where the bog ends. It runs straight to the horizon.”
“It’s an illusion,” Ashok said. “Just like the shadows we were chasing. The bog exists in her mind.”
“Storms felt real enough,” Skagi complained. “I’ve got dust all down my throat and my godsdamn ears are ringing from that thunder.”
“Those storms were real,” Vedoran said. “I think … the witch just heightened our perceptions of them, made us think they were more dangerous and lasted longer than they actually did.” He looked at Ashok, who nodded agreement.
“So we have no idea how much true time has passed since we started our journey,” Cree said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Vedoran said. “We’ve reached the bog, and our mission lies ahead of us. But we can’t let the witch worm inside our minds again.”
“I can lead with the nightmare,” Ashok offered. “The creature clearly isn’t afraid of the hag’s magic.”
Vedoran nodded. “Do it, but make sure you keep the beast from bolting,” he said. If we get separated, the hag will be that much stronger taking us on one at a time. The rest of you, weapons out and on the march.”
Cree jumped down from the hill, and the rest readied their blades. Ashok mounted the nightmare, whose mane once again shone a dull, heatless blue. He let the reins hang slack in his lap and unhooked his chain from his belt. Using his legs, he guided the nightmare into the bog.
The ground immediately turned spongy and slick. Mosquitoes and biting flies circled fetid pools of stagnant water. The air was so heavy that after a time Ashok’s hair was plastered to his skull.
The nightmare’s steps became sluggish and uneven, hampered by the sinking ground and the cloying heat. The beast flicked his tail often to combat the flies, and each time he did Ashok got slapped in the back with the stinging horsehair.
“Keep an eye out for predators,” Vedoran said. “Don’t fill your waterskins from any of the pools.”
“Not if I was dying of thirst,” Chanoch said, wrinkling his nose at the stench rising from the water. “Smells like corpse brine.”
As the day wore on, they found drier ground, but apart from the occasional bird cry or rustle in the undergrowth, they encountered no other living things save the insects. Grass, which before had been sparse and water-logged, grew in abundance in that part of the bog, and soon the nightmare waded in it. The green and brown tendrils came up to Ashok’s knees and the other warriors’ chests.
Vedoran halted them. “Skagi, take point,” he said, “and Chanoch with him. Cut us a path. I want to be able to see my feet. I’ll watch our backs. Cree, stay close to Ashok.”
They changed positions fluidly, without conversation, and soon the silence was filled with the sound of Skagi’s falchion and Chanoch’s greatsword scything the grass. Each time they sliced through the blades, the smell of rot grew worse, until Ashok put his mask up over his nose again.
Two hundred feet or so into the brush, the nightmare stopped dead. Ashok dug in with his knees, but the beast wouldn’t move. His ears pressed flat against his head, and he snorted a breath. Ashok felt the tension all down the nightmare’s body. Orange flame hovered at the roots of his mane.
“What’s wrong?” Vedoran asked.
“I don’t know,” Ashok said. “He senses something.”
“I hear it too,” Cree said. “That’s not your blade, brother?”
Skagi bobbed his weapon in the air to show it was not him who’d made the noise. Ashok heard it then too, and the rest of them tensed.
A scrape in the underbrush, moving fast and very low to the ground. Vedoran drew his sword and put his back to the nightmare. “Form up, make a circle now!” he cried.
They closed ranks around the nightmare. From his high vantage, Ashok tried to see what was swimming in the grass, but the disturbance moved too fast for him to track whether it was beast or man or hag.
Suddenly, there came an explosion of movement and cries ahead of them. The nightmare reared and screamed. A flock of ravens burst out of the underbrush-at least fifty of them-and swarmed the circle of shadar-kai.
“Stand fast!” Vedoran cried. He swung his blade overhand and took two of the birds out of the air.
Ashok grabbed the nightmare’s reins, as much to steady himself as to calm the beast. He swung the chain in a protective arc and tangled one of the large ravens. He dragged the chain in and grabbed the struggling bird. It snapped at his fingers with its black beak.
The bird’s feathers were like slippery wax. Ashok started to cast the vicious creature away, when suddenly its wings and body collapsed into a mass of feathers and bones. The body parts turned to writhing maggots in his hands.
Ashok cursed and hurled the vermin away. Skagi and Chanoch cut three more out of the air and got showered by the maggots. The rest of the birds flew away, until the raven cries were a distant echo.
“Everyone still got their eyes?” Skagi said.
“My eyes are safe, but not my appetite,” Chanoch said as he brushed the maggots off his armor and stomped on them. “Filth! Everything smells like death.”
“Calm down,” Vedoran said sharply. “Work your blades up front. We’re not stopping for a distraction. Ashok, move on.”
“I’m trying,” Ashok said. The nightmare still wouldn’t move. With his head down, the beast stamped the ground with his fetlocks burning. The few strands of green grass around his feet curled up into black husks.
The rustling sound came again, that time from behind them. Vedoran sliced the grass with his blade. Ashok twisted to look, but there was nothing there. Vedoran took two steps forward, then two more and sliced again.
“Vedoran,” Ashok said, “Don’t stray too far-”