AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 5:
Daemona was seeing stars. No, not stars. Black birds wheeling far overhead in the steel gray sky. She was outside the tunnel. What a relief. She heard droning and slowly realized it was words. It was Harlin and Ghul Lykos somewhere nearby. She wanted to call to them but didn’t have the breath to speak yet.
Harlin raged and kicked at a drooping tree not ten feet from where Daemona lay in the reeds. “I should have been last.”
“There was nothing else we could have done,” said Ghul Lykos.
“That’s not a good enough answer for me,” Harlin countered angrily.
Ghul Lykos looked away, somber as the Swamp itself.
Then they heard Daemona’s soft coughing as her breath returned.
The two men looked to each other, grins appearing where frowns had been worn hard.
“I thought we lost you,” said Harlin, kneeling beside her.
“And that would be a bad thing?” she asked with a smirk as she blinked at the Swamp’s dim sunlight.
“Yes, it would,” he said, helping her stand. “What’s in your hand?”
She looked, and beside the dagger were grey hair-like strands that disintegrated into dust and blew away with the wind. “Eww, what was that thing?”
Harlin answered, “I don’t know what kind of chimera or Ettin ogre we fought back there, but I think whatever it was, it had been dead for a very long time.”
“How did you make it out?” asked Ghul Lykos.
“I could still see a pinprick of light outside and I stretched for it as I was porting, not sure I would make it, but I had to try.”
“Like a cat,” said Harlin.
“I’d like to think I’m luckier than that. I would have used up nine lives a long time ago.”
Taking a moment to get their bearings, they all saw the great, stretching Acheronian Swamp now. Misty miles upon misty, trackless miles of gloomy trees, watery bogs, and the buzzing of noxious insects were behind them, while the way forward was even murkier.Looks like I’m in this for the long haul now, better to stick with these do-gooders than try and walk all the way back home. Who knows? Maybe I could get some wealth off the rescue of these silly princesses in the process?
“I’m back,” said Ghul Lykos as he inhaled deeply.
“You say that like you’re grateful,” muttered Daemona.
“It’s my home,” he said. “I don’t expect everyone to see the beauty that I do. It was once a green and good land. Someday when I defeat Ghul Tark, it will become so again.”
“It’s still green,” said Daemona. “Even if it is a slimy waste.”
Ghul Lykos frowned at that.
“Well, you know what I meant,” she said.
Ghul Lykos snorted and walked on, scanning the edge of the Swamp for the best place to wade through the murky waters. It wasn’t more than few good strides before the thick rolling fog hid him from view.
“You were really worried for my sake?” Daemona asked Harlin. She was reluctant to show interest, but it was so odd to her that she couldn’t resist bringing it up.
He curled his lips as if tasting something unsavory, but nodded and said, “I wouldn’t want to lose anyone under my care. It’s my fault that Tish was attacked, and I’ll have to atone for that someday.”
Daemona blinked in surprise. “Maybe you’re too hard on yourself. You didn’t ask the witch coven to attack.”
He looked at her and shook his head. “No, but I brought them to her door. She lived far away from everyone to avoid that kind of thing,” he lamented.
“Well, if you care for me, there is something you can do,” she said with a coy smile.
