“Yes, but wouldn’t we go faster on normal ground?” I knew I was grasping at straws, but the marshes seemed impenetrable now that we were in them.
“If we can make two miles an hour, that’s twenty to thirty hours of traveling. Even if we only manage eight hours a day of travel, that’s three days. Surely we can manage that?” Brynn asked.
“But where do we camp? I’m not sleeping in mud.” From the moment we’d set foot into the marsh, we had yet to find a dry spot of ground. Otsiano had promised there were places to camp, but so far, we hadn’t come across one.
“We don’t have a choice,” Thornhold said, placing a gentle hand on my arm. “I know this is hard, and I know the news about this being an actual dimension rather than a game construct hit you hard, but Erenye, it hit all of us. We’re all coping with the same news that you are.”
I inhaled a shaky breath, hearing him even though I didn’t want to. We were all in this together. It wasn’t just me. And my friends were sticking by me even though we had a power-hungry wizard after us. A wizard who just happened to be able to raise the dead. They could have deserted me, but they hadn’t.
After a moment, I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I’m overwhelmed, but I’ll stop whining. You’re right—it’s only two or three days. The longer we pause, the longer it will take. I’m all right. Let’s move while we still have light.”
We began moving again, with me in the front since I was a ranger. I took a sip of water from the waterskin to clear my head and forced myself to focus.One foot in front of the other,I told myself.One step at a time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.The longest journey begins with a single step.And every other clichéd but true sentiment I could muster.
We moved forward through the bog, slogging through murky water. Ray helped Thornhold keep steady, and Brynn and Reggie traversed the muck in silence. After a while, we worked out a rhythm to our pace, and we started to make a little better time.
As we proceeded, I began to notice drier patches along the route. I called over my shoulders to the others, and we picked out the driest route possible. Another hour, and we were walking on a narrow stretch of dry ground, zigzagging through the cordgrass and scrub brush, and we managed to pick up the pace a little.
As the sun began to lower in the sky, I looked around. The surrounding area was about the driest we’d found. There wasn’t much room to set up tents, but we could probably all fit into one if we didn’t mind cuddling up to each other. In fact, I thought that would keep us warmer.
I turned to the others and motioned to the surrounding grass. “We’re not going to find better before dark. Let’s make camp.”
“We’ve come about seven miles since we started,” Reggie said. “I have a pedometer that doesn’t need batteries,” he added.
“Seven miles down, about 35 to go,” I said, still feeling disheartened. But I wasn’t crying, we weren’t hurt, and we were making some progress. That was about as good as it was going to get, I thought.
“We shouldn’t build a fire,” Thornhold said. “There are gases in marshes like these, and they can catch fire.”
“It’s also a beacon that somebody’s here,” Brynn said, helping to set up the tent.
“Then we’re in for a cold dinner,” I said, shivering. “Let’s get inside and eat something. I want to start off as soon as it’s light enough to see,” I added.
As we stored our packs at the back of the tent—where they took up a third of the room—a loud shriek echoed through the evening air, reverberating before it faded away. It gave me chills, though I thought it was probably some bird, and the sound made me feel incredibly isolated and lonely.
“Come on,” Thornhold whispered, motioning for me to sit in front of him. “Let me give you a neck rub.”
I nodded, grateful for the human contact. Brynn cut slices of bread and cheese for us, along with dried fruit and pieces of jerky. We ate silently, then spent the rest of the evening trading foot rubs and shoulder massages to avoid stiffening up.
As we crawled under the pile of open sleeping bags, maneuvering for space, I hoped that the night would pass without incident, because I didn’t think I could handle anything more than that.
CHAPTER 40: THE MARSH WITCH
Morning came.We stumbled out of the tent to a surprisingly mild day, with the sun shining. The marshes took on a totally different look; the grasses sparkled with dew. Even though the stench remained, and the midges were as thick and annoying as they had been the day before, somehow, the air felt a little fresher, and my mood had lightened. Maybe I just needed to get used to being here.
We went back into the tent to eat so that the bugs wouldn’t bother us. Ray was covered with welts from the bites, and he tried his best to keep from scratching.
“I think I have some generic salve in my pack,” he said. “It might help. I hesitate to use it for bug bites when we might need it later, though.”
“I know this sounds gross, but let me try something,” Brynn said. “Let me see your arm.”
He held out his arm, and she studied the bites. Three were swollen and looked painfully red. She took a deep breath and—using her thumbnails—squeezed it from both sides.
“Youch!” Ray yelped, but a second later, a clear drop of liquid squirted out of the welt. Brynn wiped it away with a torncloth. Ray waited for a second, then added, “That doesn’t itch as bad.”
“I thought so. Get their venom out and it will itch a lot less.”
“I’m going to have a lot of nail scars on me,” Ray said.
“Better than scarring from scratching too much,” I said. “Reggie, do you have anything to deflect insect bites?”
