Chapter 04
Stolen Souls
"I hesitate to put ink to parchment with this tale. Like no other of the Hell swords are the stories of this unholy thing. It should have been lost forever and never found. Though in truth that can and should be said of all of them.
But this one? Not a single mention of it is given where thousands do not perish. The blood cost of this one blade may surpass all the others... save one.
That one I will not write of since it involves my own family.
If not for the love I bear my king, and how well known to the world the central character in this tale is, I would burn every reference I have and destroy this record unfinished. No mention I think should ever be given...of Shandrell, the Seducer of Souls."
Albreth Ravenclaw, King's Chronicler
The swamp mud clings to my boots threatening to pull them from my feet with every step. Yet for all of that I do not stop running through the muck. I can still hear the hounds baying behind me. They have chased me for half the day.
All for a deer.
I know that poaching on the Lord's land is a crime, but his actions make it necessary. He has had his huntsmen in the wood making noise,driving all the game in the nearby land towards his estates. If I didn't poach I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't have the furs I sell for the coins I need. The coins for the ale I drink and for the comforting use of the tavern keepers daughter. At the time I was hunting it had seemed worth the risk.
Now? Not so much.
A hidden root sends me into the muck for the hundredth time in the last few hours. My clothes hang wet, like dead skin upon me, as I try to rise. Spitting mud from my mouth, I pull my hand up wrapped around a stick. Whipping mud from my eyes on my sleeve I see differently.
The old bone falls from my hand and sinks back into its watery grave while I retch. It was a leg bone and decidedly human.
It's the hounds, those relentless hounds that drive me to my feet. Stumbling I make it all of maybe thirty feet then I'm soaked again. In the warm stinking ooze my hand finds a piece of metal.
"Eye holes?" I say spitting muck from my mouth. Sitting up I pull the old helm from the water. For only seconds do I hold it before the skull inside drops out! Black eyeless holes look up at me, accusingly, for a few seconds then the water slurps the skull back into the muddy depths. I get to my feet shaking and stumble off into the swamp.
Deeper, ever deeper into this marsh I'm driven. The hounds drive me with their howls. Hour, after hour, after hour I stumble through the wet. The grasses clinging to me, the slime coating me. My nose filled with the rotting smell of the mud that I now know comes from the bodies of what must be thousands. More and more often now my hands find rotten bits of leather, rusted things that could have once been weapons,....and bones. Stained, cracked shards of men long dead. They move under my hands when I fall, but I no longer pull them above the water.
I've heard the rumors of this place my whole life. Some say a great battle was fought here long ago It's said that in the very heart of the marsh the survivors planted a tall black cross. Some say the body of the enemy lord was hung from it.
Black Cross Mire is its named. Drunken rumors spread over too much ale. That's what I always held them to be.
Now? Not so much.
Those same rumors have it the place is haunted.
Never believed those either. As I pull my foot up out the sucking mud for the thousandth time I think I would rather be chased by ghost than by these damn hounds. A ghost would likely be less persistent than the lord and these retched hounds.
Hounds?
I slowly come to a halt standing knee deep in the water. I look down at the dark green sludge then back the way I have come. How are hounds tracking me? I've been wading through water for hours now. I can smell like nothing else but this swamp. Not even the nose of the best hound could track me by scent. The sick smell of this rotten, flesh ridden mud is far too strong!
Looking back, I can see a long way through the twisted blackened trees that sit, like hunched nightmares, above the water. I can see almost for a mile! The hounds bay with a fury sounding all the closer for my pause. The tone changes ...they have the target in sight!
How?
Turning to the west I see to my horror how much time has passed. The sun sits near the water! I have but a short time till I lose the light.
The hounds bay even closer than before!
How?
The sound of them grows in both volume and fury! My heart enters my throat and I swallow as it flows around me in waves of growling and snarling. Then their baying is an echo coming back to me from behind me. Then, as I stand shivering from the growing cold, there is a sudden quiet that is far more frightening than anything that came before it.
As the shadows lengthen, I turn and stumbling with exhaustion make my way to a small cluster of twisted trees. My hands touch the wood just as the last light dies around me. Climbing out of the water, I cling to the warped and soggy wood. The swamp pulling at my feet almost like it's reluctant to give me up. The branches give me no solid purchase so a many a time I slip back into the waters. Waters that now seem, if anything, warmer. I shiver from the cold night air as a faint breeze blows up. I watch the moon lift it's from the edge of the swamp and drift upwards. It's huge face giving a pale white light to the lands around me.
A sick color shimmer on the top of the water under this light. I follow it to where it starts and gasp when I see the rise. A place out of the water!
Should I go there?
The nub of a broken branch trying to work it's way up my ass decides the issue for me. I try to move and the wet wood slips under my hand dropping me a half dozen feet back into the swamp. The water is warmer than the night air. I rake mud from my face and start for the rise. At first when I see them poking up I think I'm see scraggly trees on the rise. Trees draped with moss. It hangs in tatters from the straight branches. But then...as I close the distance I see they are in fact banners! What they once displayed is long since lost to time and weather but tatters of cloth hangs from them dancing wisp like in the night breeze. The wind increases as I step onto the pile of stones. The banners move back and I see it. A large black cross standing in the center of the rise!
Nay not a rise...a cairn!
The trees with their hard branches suddenly seem a much better place to spend the night.
Turning around, I see the moonlight fade. Looking up I see the moon pass behind a rolling cluster of clouds. They cross its face in long streamers almost like.... my eyes go to the shredded banners hanging behind me. I turn away and start for the trees more by guessing than by sight.
"Who's there?"
I turn sharp at the sound of a woman's voice. I see her when the clouds break away from in front of the moon for a few brief seconds. She's huddled near the cross clutching at what may be the largest rock. She's watching me her eyes glowing almost in the moonlight. Her clothes, look to be in the same state as my own.
"Who are you?" she asks in a voice that quavers with fear.
"Just a man, lost. I'm Simon...called the Wanderer by many. The Poacher by others. I mean the no harm, good lady. I am, just as lost out here as yourself."
I see her nod.
"Yes, I am lost. Though it would seem that now I am found. I'm Shandrell. Called many things but few of them are pleasant. Even poacher would be better than what some call me."
Moving forward the moon breaks just as I near the cairn again. In it's pale light I can see her face. Under the caked on mud there is dried blood...and maybe other things as well. I can see her arm hangs limp at her side with a twist near the elbow that shouldn't be there.
