The mage scrunched his face again, and the scar scrunched with it. He was annoyed, but she couldn’t help herself; she needed a distraction from the sounds creeping ever closer.
“Do you remember my saying that you needn’t speak to me?”
She huffed. “Yes, but you didn’t say Ican’t.”
“I would like to clarify my meaning then.”
Amma twisted up her lips, annoyed but mostly frightened by yet another too-close splash. She fidgeted, looking around and humming to herself instead, but it came out as a whine.
“A formidable foe.”
Amma turned to him, waiting for more with an encouraging smile.
He rolled his eyes, voice a grumble. “I misjudged a situation and placed trust where I should not have, I suppose a bit like you and the dog, but this was a wholly different kind of beast, one capable of premeditation.” He raised a hand to touch his nose but pulled it away before making contact. The scar ran down the length of his face diagonally, missing his eye so perfectly it almost seemed to be done with intention and not just luck.
“I’m sorry someone did that to you,” she said with a gentle hesitation, watching his face convulse like she’d insulted him. She went on, quicker, thinking of his hand and how unmarred it had been so quickly after cutting it. “Why do you have it though? Don’t you heal right away?”
“Well, I do in almost every instance unless the wound is severe, and I’m incapacitated, but there are also certain magics that—” He snapped his head toward her, jaw hardening. The look he gave struck her to her core, and she felt trapped in it, just like in the Sanctum. Then he frowned and broke their gaze. “Infernal darkness, you are clever, aren’t you?”
Amma had no idea what he meant. “I have no idea—”
“Sanguinisui, ask no more about this.”
Amma’s breath caught as her words were cut off. Her throat burned as she swallowed back the rest of what she had to say. Rendered magically mute once again, all she could do was pout and turn her unfortunate focus back on the noises bubbling up out of the swamp.
CHAPTER 8
BETTER THE DEMON YOU KNOW THAN THE WOLF YOU DON’T
The swamp that was Tarfail Quag was always just a little bit worse each time Damien visited it, and after a lifetime spent in Aszath Koth, that was saying something. Hours had passed in cursedly wonderful silence after Kaz had been reminded of his place and the girl had been arcanely ordered quiet. He was coming to learn that if his orders through the talisman were given with no specific end, they would wear off, and he could feel the magic wane, a good thing to learn before using it on King Archibald. But once he could feel his enthrallment come to an end on his last command, she remained silent.
She was frowning again as well, though her eyes were stuck open wide, that bright blue searching the ever-darkening swamp. He shouldn’t have been as annoyed as he was, and truly he wasn’t sure at exactly what was annoying him, but he was bloody annoyed nonetheless, and the swamp with its incessant smells and noises wasn’t helpful. Why Anomalous Craven chose to make his home in such a place was beyond him, but the man better make himself useful when they finally reached their destination in the depth of the bog.
The Brotherhood had laden them with an abundance of food before they left Aszath Koth, but evening was falling, and they would need to rest. Anomalous’s tower was too far off to reach before dark, and Damien realized he should have accounted for slower travel with a begrudging group in tow, but hadn’t. For all that the quag was during the day, traveling at night could be dangerous if a wrong turn drove a knoggelvi off the path. Thick muck could mean drowning, and the things within the waters were an even worse way to meet one’s end.
Damien began to keep an eye out for an acceptable place to make camp for the night. There was little to choose from on the narrow path between the low-lying wetlands. He hadn’t planned for this, not any of it, but especially not making an extraneous trip across Tarfail Quag. He glared over at the cause of it all, sitting there looking forlorn, her hands still working at the knoggelvi’s snarled mane. Well, it wasn’tentirelyher fault, he supposed. He could have secured the talisman better, sheathed it somehow, before blindly dropping such a powerful thing in his cloak pocket. Not that her hand belonged in there, but—
There was a sound deep in the swamp, different than the rest, sticking out of the cacophony of insects and birds and then sinking back in. The others didn’t notice it, Kaz still sulking and the girl…also sulking. But what right did she have to be sulking? Because what, he had made her stop talking for a short while? She was the one who had tried to suss out his weaknesses disguised as interest in him. And to think, he had almost been idiotic enough to let slip his vulnerability to beings who could manipulate noxscura.
Damien sat straighter, scanning the line of trunks jutting up through the fog and shaking off the memory of the dagger cutting across his face years ago. There was something out amongst the trees and the wetness, and not the simple bog beasts that had been trailing them or the curious crocodiles who lazily floated at the surface of the waters. Neither truly dared make them prey, it would be a loss for them, but this thing that was tracking them—and those were measured steps he could now hear, matching the knoggelvi’s gait—this thing was braver. Or stupider, it would all depend.
“Stop.” Damien kept his voice low, but both knoggelvi responded. The woman and Kaz perked up as Damien dismounted. His boots sank into the soft ground, silent as he took a few steps along the road ahead of them. They’d been followed long enough that the thing knew their movements, but with their subtle alteration, it too stopped. The foulness of the swamp masked its smell, and the fog was too thick to spot what Damien suspected might be amongst it. Sending Kaz a few paces ahead, alone, might draw it out, but treating him like bait would just make him sulkier. And for reasons Damien couldn’t possibly understand, it would probably upset the girl too, so Damien closed his eyes and muttered Chthonic to arcanely feel the world around him instead.
There were many living things out in the swamp that depended on blood. First was his own, constant and familiar, a baseline for his arcane senses. Then his, well…his party, he supposed, two knoggelvi and the imp, all infernal and marginally close to the aura he gave off, tinged with brimstone and eternal death and flickers of the chaotic noxscura deep within them, tainting them to be divergent from all other beings. And then there was her too, significantly different than the others, but not so different than himself. Those were the human parts they had in common.
Human blood had a way about it that was almost curious. It moved along and explored whatever space it was in, cautious but eager. Her blood was hitching in its veins with a nervous tick as her heart pumped it too quickly in her chest. He lingered a second longer than necessary on the odd sanctuary of her presence amongst all the infernal ones, so like his own but not, then pulled away when he remembered he had more important things to concern himself with.
Reptiles, mostly, the slow, viscous march of their blood heavy out in the humid, buzzing swamp. There were many, but they were mostly dormant. A few smaller, fuzzy things that called this place home, their erratic heartbeats a flurry, and birds too, equally scattered and nervous amongst the trees. And then he felt it, the other blood, and it waswrong.
Damien focused as he slipped the dagger from his bracer. He risked pushing his spell over the creature ahead of them to confirm his suspicion—magically imbued creatures often knew when they were being sought out, and if they were good enough trackers, could follow the spell to its source. Even though the arcana in this beast was more like a curse, it felt his prodding all the same, and it did not like it. The feeling was mutual.
The werewolf propelled itself over a fallen log, barreling down the path toward them, kicking up mud and parting the fog as its long strides brought it upon them in seconds. It was a wretched, skinny thing, but its reach was absurdly long as it swiped. All fangs and claws and matted hair along sinewy limbs, it snapped hungry jaws, sailing toward Damien.
But he was faster—blood mages always were if they already magically knew their query—and he wrapped his fingers around the blade of his dagger. The bite of the metal stung, hot wetness welling up in his palm, and then he ripped his hand through the air.
The slice he drew materialized, his blood sharpening into its own, crimson blade, and it cut up through the air between him and the werewolf. The beast couldn’t correct course, already leaping toward him, and the magicked blade found its target, slicing right through its open jaws and severing up through its head. A gurgling whimper, unbecoming of a beast so big, sounded into the marshy quiet that had fallen around them, and the body toppled to the ground, its own blood—that blood that was so wrong—spilling out on the wet earth just at Damien’s feet.
Werewolves were unlike most other creatures, born human and changed by an infectious curse, notably not infernal, but wrongly considered to be a result of demonic possession anyway. Bloodcraft sometimes allowed the wielder to manipulate their target, but the cursed parts of any being were often too erratic for something like that. Thankfully, cutting into most anything’s head was usually enough to kill it, and Damien’s well-aimed spell coupled with the werewolf’s own reckless lunge made quick work out of the beast. He would never admit it aloud, but luck had been on his side.
