Seeds of Rebellion (32 page)

“Are you appreciating the beauty of defensive footwork?” Ferrin asked.

Jason nodded, brushing sweaty strands of hair away from his eyes.

“Had enough?” Ferrin inquired. “This may be the only time I allow you to engage me recklessly.”

Forgetting all caution, ignoring proper footwork, Jason rushed the displacer, getting so close before swinging that he could not imagine the displacer merely dodging the blow. But Ferrin ducked and spun away. Jason kept after him, grunting as he wielded his sword like a baseball bat, swinging relentlessly.

Finally compelled to use his sword again, Ferrin deflected the mighty strokes. “You have strength,” the displacer conceded. “Issue blows like that, and an unprepared opponent might drop his weapon.”

Jason kept coming. Eluding an overzealous swing, the displacer patted Jason on the shoulder. “Of course, swinging too hard can also leave you defenseless.”

After a final energetic onslaught, Jason stepped back, panting. “I’m done.”

“You showed tenacity,” Ferrin said.

“You were impossible to touch.”

“I was entirely on the defensive. I could have held you off all night. Or slain you any number of times. The best openings often occur when an opponent is on the offensive. Go practice footwork.”

Jason felt silly, dancing around alone with his sword, going through all the drills Ferrin had taught him. He took some relief in the fact that Lyrian had no video recorders or Internet connections.

It had been fun attacking Ferrin. Jason wished he could have surprised him by penetrating his defenses, but consoled himself that his inability to do so was evidence that he was learning from the best. The displacer really was a great teacher: patient, direct, specific, and very knowledgeable. Drake and Aram had provided
pointers as well, but Ferrin had proved to be the most thorough and methodical instructor and had supervised most of the tutoring.

While working in solitude on his swordsmanship, Jason glanced over to where Rachel and Chandra were using Edomic to break dead tree limbs. Before going to sleep at night, Jason privately kept trying to ignite dry twigs or leaves with the phrase Rachel had taught him, but had never even made anything warm. He had temporarily worried that perhaps the Word had failed against Maldor due to his lack of ability, but then he remembered that all of the syllables had vanished from memory after he spoke them together, so he must have said it well enough.

Sweaty and tired, Jason finally quit his exercises, joining the others around a small fire. Drake, Ferrin, and Nedwin had proved so adept at steering the group away from enemies that Jason often forgot they were on the run.

Aram sat, meticulously honing his sword. Dorsio reclined beside Galloran, the two of them eating dried meat and dense bread. Ferrin warmed a skewer of vegetables over the fire. Scowling, Tark whittled, cross-legged on a blanket. Drake leaned against a tree, eyes half closed, irises sliding eerily back and forth. From experience, Jason knew that the trancelike state was as close as seedmen came to sleeping. Nedwin was away scouting. Rachel and Chandra had yet to stop practicing.

After rummaging through a bag for food, Jason plopped down beside Tark, chewing salty meat. Tark held up a mangled block of wood. “It was going to be a duck. I may have to settle for a cube.”

“Or a headless duck,” Jason said, “without legs or wings.”

Tark dropped the wood in disgust. “I wish I had my sousalax.”

“You’re the only one,” Ferrin chuckled.

“I’ll second Tark’s wish,” Aram said, sliding a stone along his blade. “He could give me more lessons.”

“Lessons?” Ferrin groaned, covering his ears.

“I was getting good,” Aram protested. “Tell him, Tark.”

Tark chose his words carefully. “You were … one of the few men I have met with the capacity to sound the instrument.”

“I wasn’t good?”

“Good takes practice.”

“I was loud.”

“True,” Tark said. “I revoke my wish.”

“Not many men can blow a sousalax,” Ferrin said. “How did you get started?”

Tark grinned. “In my youth I worked as a diver at Ithilum. The job strengthened my lungs.” Tark puffed out his chest, pounding his ribs.

“I’m certain our enemies would gladly furnish any of us with an instrument,” Galloran said. “We’ve been hard to find.”

On a muggy morning, below an overcast sky, the ten riders reached boggy terrain. They had approached the Sunken Lands from a different direction than Jason had previously used with Jasher and Rachel, but the soupy marshland looked equally dreary.

Drake called a halt. Nedwin walked out of earshot as Drake explained that the horses would not be able to continue.

“Let’s strip any necessary gear,” Galloran suggested. “We won’t be back this way. Our path will take us beyond the Sunken Lands to the Seven Vales.”

“Maybe I could talk to the horses,” Rachel offered. “Try to send them around to the other side.”

Galloran dismounted. “We’re approaching the Sunken Lands from the southwest and intend to exit from the northwest. But the horses can’t go around to the west. They will find the mountains as impassable as the marshland. I suppose they could try to loop
around to the east. It will amount to a long journey through dangerous country.”

“What if a couple of us herd the horses around?” Chandra said. “We might be glad to have them on the far side.”

Galloran shook his head. “I don’t want to risk losing anyone. Even by horseback, the journey will probably take too long. The horses would have to circumnavigate three quarters of the swamp in the time it takes us to cut across part of it. Besides, Maldor has strongholds east of the marshlands.”

“The western gate to the Seven Vales does not lie far north of the swamp,” Drake said. “On foot the journey will cost us only two days.”

“If we’re not sending anyone with them,” Rachel proposed, “I might as well try to convince the horses to loop around and meet us.”

“What if an enemy follows them?” Chandra asked.

“Nobody would suspect the riderless horses had a destination,” Ferrin said. “Any who find them will just try to take possession of them.”

“Very well,” Galloran said. “Give it a try, Rachel.”

“Put some extra effort into telling Mandibar,” Drake said. “I’d hate to lose him.”

Jason sidled over to Rachel as the others transferred gear. “Can you do that?” he asked quietly. “Tell them to come?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I know how to ask the horses to meet me. I’d have more confidence if I could accurately visualize our destination. But I’ve never been there. I’m going to picture us crossing the swamp by boat, and the horses running around to the east, and them finding us on the northwest side. We’ll see what happens.”

Jason watched Rachel move from horse to horse, stroking them
and speaking to each one individually. When all of the desired gear was unpacked, she made a general declaration to all of the horses. Jason sensed that she was telling them to run eastward. Moving in a group, they galloped in the correct direction.

“What about Nedwin?” Ferrin asked. “There are many distinctive sounds in the swamp that may reveal our location. Has the time come to lose his ear?”

“I think so,” Galloran said. “Can you manage it?”

“Among his ingredients, Nedwin has salves for burns and infections,” Ferrin said. “He claims to feel no pain, so I’ll use a hot knife. We’ll poke out the eye on his hand while we’re at it. I’ll pretend like I’m just discovering the ear, in hopes they might continue to trust the nonsense he’s been hearing lately.”

Galloran nodded silently.

Jason felt chills as Ferrin strode away, drawing a knife. He was glad he wouldn’t have to watch.

Ferrin and Nedwin returned perhaps an hour later. A bandage around Nedwin’s hand had replaced his glove, and he also wore a bandage tied to the side of his head. He smiled, revealing hideous teeth. Jason realized his teeth must have been deliberately damaged while he was a prisoner.

“I injected nervesong into the eye and the ear just before the surgery,” Nedwin reported. “It meant I felt some pain when Ferrin cut and burned me, but not nearly what the displacers felt on their end.”

“Once the ear was amputated, I administered poison to it,” Ferrin said. “The displacer severed his connection. Hard to say whether he did it in time.”

Nedwin could not stop grinning. “At the very least, a pair of spies just had very bad days.”

CHAPTER
14

P
erched atop a boulder at the edge of the swamp, Rachel watched for snakes. She had seen far too many as she and her companions had squelched across the marsh for the last two days. Big ones and small ones, fat ones and thin ones, light ones and dark ones, striped ones and solid ones and patterned ones. A poisonous snake had struck Dorsio’s boot twice, the fangs failing to penetrate. A nonpoisonous snake had bitten Nedwin on the wrist. Drake had killed at least three venomous snakes as they slithered into camp while the group slept.

At the moment, the only way for a snake to reach her would be to climb across a steep expanse of bare stone. She had a long stick ready, just in case.

Her current vantage point commanded a depressing view of the muddy shore where the sucking marshland gave way to the black water of the swamp. A miasmic haze had muted the recent sunrise. Tall trees grew up out of the water, widespread branches interlocking like great umbrellas. Bedraggled foliage hung in long streamers from trunks and limbs. In the distance a ponderous slug,
longer than her arm, slurped across an island of mulch, eyestalks stretching grotesquely.

If Rachel had been allowed to pick one place in Lyrian never to revisit, without pause she would have selected the Sunken Lands. Only poisonous, diseased, disgusting threats lurked in the gloom ahead, including predatory slime, supersized insects, stealthy serpents, and elephantine frogs.

Two crafts awaited on the shore. The sleek skiff looked large enough to accommodate six. The wide canoe could carry no more than three. There was no way to proceed without boats, but fortunately the Amar Kabal routinely hid vessels along the shore of the swamp. Drake had found one, Nedwin the other. Assisted by Ferrin and Dorsio, both were currently off seeking a third craft.

Rachel wished she could have stayed with the horses. No soldiers would have caught her. In an emergency, she could have transferred to Mandibar. With her ability to issue Edomic instructions, she felt certain she could have led them safely around the swamp. After weeks of riding, she had formed a connection with her mare, and hated the possibility of never seeing her again.

Jason came traipsing toward her boulder, boots cumbersome with mud, one hand on the hilt of his sword. She had noticed that as he kept practicing, he seemed increasingly proud of the weapon. He looked up at her. “You might be safe from snakes, but you’re going to fall and break your neck.”

The boulder was steep on all sides. Climbing it had required some effort. “I was trying to get away from the smell.” After sucking gel from orchid buds, her body odor had been magnified, transforming her into human insect repellant. But that was nothing compared to how terrible the others stank.

“Not a bad reason,” Jason conceded. “Nedwin is heading this way with another canoe. We’re going to leave soon.”