Chương 44: Chapter 43 - How to Fight a Swamp

It wasn't hard to find Brodie and Conrad. We could hear the sounds of destruction before we reached the yurt. Vance veered toward the center of the swamp, following the noise. The mist thinned the closer we got, until, all at once, the air was clear. I could see through the wreckage of trees into the distance, where the colossus raged. Around it was a halo of suspended magic—the last of the mist, floating like a weightless cloak. Some fears are instinctive.

Looking out over a long drop always made my stomach swoop with terror. That could kill me. That required caution. I'd felt it when I was too young to explain it, and it never went away. It was bone deep. Part of the code. As I watched the colossus move its arms, I felt that same swoop of terror, and the same certainty. Seeing the unstoppable mass sweep through the air made me feel like a speck. If it hit me, I would be dead on impact. I wouldn't even feel my body land.

Conrad was dodging around the gigantic trunks of mud and plants that were its legs, trying to avoid having his skull smashed. As we cleared another row of trees, we saw Brodie, yards off, standing in his boat. He was crossing and uncrossing his arms above his head to get our attention. When I waved back, he started drawing both arms across his neck in an exaggerated cutting motion. Vance turned off the motor. I reached under the bench and pulled out the lamp, still wrapped in the blanket.

To Vance I said, "Stay back. Stay safe."

"That was my intention." I handed the wrapped lamp to Kappa and squatted down so our eyes would be close to level.

"Kappa, baby, listen to me. I have to help Conrad." He knew something was wrong. His brow furrowed, and he frowned. That was his sad face. I had sometimes wondered if it was natural to his species, or if he'd learned to imitate the humans he lived with. It sure looked like a human expression, and it certainly worked on me. I swallowed the lump that jumped to my throat.

"You have an important job. That lamp is so, so important. You're going to hold on to it for me, okay? You're its guardian."

"Mera—" he whined.

"You can do that for me, right?" He hugged it. His little arms couldn't even go all the way around it, but he hugged it to his small pale chest and nodded.

"I love you, buddy." I stood up.

"Mera!" he cried.

"Come home!" It took me a moment to understand what he was trying to say, but once I did, it seemed obvious and natural. That was his way of telling me to be careful. Because I had to come home. I was a part of home to him. I bit my lip so I wouldn't cry, then said, "I will!" —because what else can you say when the world's most adorable bog-monster is staring up at you with eyes that big and sad? I turned, grabbed the sword from the bench, and jumped out of the boat. My body jarred when my feet hit the mud.

The water was shallower than I'd been expecting. Only calf high. Brodie was poling his boat over to meet me. I ran to him. When we were close enough, I called out, "What's going on?"

"We're not sure what it's following, but it's following something," Brodie said.

"Noise? Light?" He shook his head.

"We think it's vibrations. If it starts to wander somewhere we don't want it to go, Conrad tries to get its attention."

"How?"

"He walks up and hits it." I turned around to stare, in horror, at my suicidal packmate. Brodie continued, "When he needs a break, he yells to me. I start up the boat and give it something to chase while he rests. So far we've been lucky—""Lucky?"

"We're safe if we can keep our distance. In the boat I can beat it for speed, but I have to be careful that I don't run aground." Conrad jumped behind one of the lumbering legs, rolling his back along the muddy column. The colossus shifted the leg. Conrad either dropped or stumbled and landed in a crouch. The colossus swung its arm, leveling several trees, until it crashed against a cypress that was too large to be knocked down. The ear-splitting cracks of the snapping trees made my body jerk.

"I have to get this sword to him!" I cried. Brodie, looking grim, nodded and reached for the cord to start his boat's motor.

"Call him."

"Conrad!" I yelled. The wolf-man glanced my direction. The motor roared to life behind me. I stepped away from the boat. Conrad came toward me while Brodie drove the boat toward the colossus. I ran to meet Conrad halfway. He reached out, took my arm, and turned me to run beside him without slowing his pace.

"Further!" He tried to yell over the other noises, but he was panting for breath, so it came out choked.

"We need more distance!" The ponderous fist of the colossus slammed into the earth. The ground trembled and seemed to flex. I almost lost my footing, but Conrad still had my arm. He kept me upright as I stumbled on. We stopped behind a wide tree. Conrad dropped his back against it and stood there, eyes closed and gasping for breath. I was too scared to appreciate it, but that was the first time that I'd ever seen him tired. I stood in front of him, holding the sword and feeling useless. He opened his eyes.

"What do you have for me?" I held out the sword. He took it.

"This is it?"

"It's blessed silver." His voice rose: "You couldn't find a gun or something?" My cheeks flushed.

"No, Conrad! Funny enough, there was no eighteenth-century gun that shoots magic bullets. I had to take what I could get! Besides, how much good did the last gun do you?" His grimace showed part of his fangs.

"Sorry. I mean, thank you. This is…" He hoisted the sword, and his gaze ran down its blade. He lowered it again.

"Shit," he muttered. He raised his eyes to me.

"Blessed silver?" I nodded.

"I guess I'd better be careful." He pushed himself away from the tree. My stomach dropped, and it didn't stop at my feet. It plunged to the center of the earth where it churned around with all the magma. That was blessed silver, and he was a lycanthrope. It would be hard to say whether the colossus or the sword was more dangerous to him. But what could we do? We needed the silver!

"I'm sorry, Conrad," I blurted. He put his arm around me and pulled me in for a one-arm-hug.

"You stay back here," he said.

"Keep your distance." My face was buried in his shirt, but I smiled anyway. It was weak and trembled a little. My chest felt as if the colossus was pressing down on it.

"You're supposed to give me a very important job."

"Huh?" I was trying to tease him, but my voice came out as a whiny squeak.

"I know what you're doing. I just did it to Kappa. You're trying to keep me safe." I sniffed and closed my eyes.

"But you have to give me a very important job! If you don't, who knows what I'll do?" Conrad stepped back, put his hand on my shoulder, and lowered his head so he could look me in the eyes. Yup. I was his Kappa.

"You'll keep your distance," he said, "and you'll keep yourself safe. If I need you, I'll call." My heart lifted a little. I wasn't a burden to him. He was my guardian, but he didn't see me as some pathetic figure to be protected at all costs. He knew that we were in this together and that danger was a part of it. He'd keep me safe if he could, but he wouldn't watch everything fall apart because he didn't trust me.

"Okay," I said. Conrad turned back to the colossus. His grip on the sword hilt tightened, making the blade rise. For a human, it would have been a two-handed weapon, but he held it like a short sword. When he was clear of the tree, he broke into a run. I stepped to the side to watch. Brodie was driving his small boat across the short gap between felled trees in front of the colossus. His head turned back and forth as he tried to split his attention between where he was going and the monster beside him.

He turned the boat away from the monster, throwing up an arched wake. The colossus waded toward him. With every step, hundreds of gallons of water rushed away in heaving waves or swirled in behind his tread. Some of it sloshed into the side of Brodie's boat. The colossus raised both of its arms. One swept down, connecting with nothing. The other hit the base of a small tree, cracking the trunk up the center. The colossus twisted and swung back, blindly. One arm caught the damaged tree and flung it forward.

The leafy crown engulfed the back of Brodie's boat before he could see it coming. The broken trunk struck the back corner, dragging it low enough to let in water. The motor choked to a stop. My hand flew to my mouth. My heart was pounding hard enough that I could feel it in my ears. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Conrad arrived. There was no grace to his technique. He used the sword like it was a sharp club, but it worked.

He hacked large branches free with one stroke and used his other arm to hurl them away while raising the sword to hack again. He shredded the downed tree, creating a straight, short path to Brodie's boat and leaving a layer of jagged trimmings floating behind him. The colossus stepped forward. Conrad found the swamped edge of the boat, drove the sword into the mud beside him, and reached out to rip back the last of the branches. He dragged Brodie closer and threw Brodie's arm over his shoulders.

I was too far away to see if Brodie's eyes were open, but his head lolled back as Conrad pulled him from the boat. They were standing together— if Brodie was standing—facing the same way, with Brodie's arm over Conrad's shoulder, and Conrad's arm around Brodie's back. Conrad grabbed the sword with his free hand and started moving away from the boat. I wanted to scream—as if that could help anything— Go! Faster! Behind them, the colossus walked over the boat. The tree it had downed disappeared under its foot.

The boat snapped. The back half vanished as fast as the tree had. I glimpsed the front of the boat, pointing skyward, before it was shoved aside by the water. The colossus raised its arms, swinging them around in a wild teeter-totter that betrayed its blindness. Its body swayed and twisted, a victim to the weight and momentum of its huge limbs. Brodie was walking now. Limping. Conrad said something in his ear, then shoved him toward safety. Get some distance. We were safe if we could keep our distance.

Conrad turned and walked toward the colossus. Distance was our safety… and I had handed my best friend a close-combat weapon. Ignoring the despair constricting my chest, I ran out to grab Brodie. When I turned around and put his arm over my shoulder, he dropped most of his weight on me before I'd braced myself. His face was bloodless. Water dripped from his hair and clothes, his mouth hung open when he wasn't speaking, and it barely moved as he tried to form words.

"My leg," he whispered.

"It's sprained. Broken."

"Did you feel it break?"

"Everything broke. Hit by a tree." His lips moved more, but there was no sound. I walked him toward Vance's boat while Vance used his pole to push it closer. Kappa was there, running from side to side, looking as anxious as I felt. I handed Brodie off to the old man, then ran back to where I'd been waiting before. Conrad charged the colossus's leg, sword up, blade angled backward.

It slid through the mire as he passed, severing it, leaving a gleaming white trail that disappeared as the weight of the colossus pressed the mud back together. When the colossus swung an oversized arm at him, Conrad jumped back only as far as he had to. He bounced on the balls of his feet with anxious energy, moving a step closer, then back again, trying to gauge the distance. As the colossus's arm descended, Conrad raised the sword and stepped forward, sweeping the blade down in a huge arc.

A chunk of arm—nothing but a muddy heap with random roots and branches sticking out—landed in the swamp. Could he carve it down like that? Arms first, then the torso? I tried to imagine how long it would take, and knew immediately that not even Conrad could fight for that long. The colossus didn't seem to notice that it had been hit. As it raised the injured arm, there was a loud scrunching, groaning sound.

The severed plants exposed by the amputation reached out, growing at an impossible rate, snaking around each other to form a dense bundle. Whips of moss wrapped themselves around the new growth, and mud slid out to cover it all. All I could feel was a cool numbness, everywhere. Sound disappeared, and the rest of the scene faded into the background as I watched. It grew back. The stupid thing didn't need to reattach its limbs! It could just grow new ones! I splashed forward.

"Conrad!"

"Stay back!" he yelled.

"It has too much magic! We have to get to the pendant!"

"I said stay back!" I stumbled backward. The colossus shuffled a leg forward and twisted its trunk to regain its balance. While it did, Conrad paused and shifted the sword to a reverse grip so the pommel was by his thumb. He ran straight at the thirty-foot monster and jumped at the last second, burying the sword to the hilt in the thing's belly and using it as a hold. Claws out, he drove his left hand into the mud up to his wrist. His boots scraped and kicked for a foothold in the mess.

He was going to try to climb it! I felt giddy. I opened my mouth to laugh, but the only thing that came out was a single breathy "hah." The swamp really did make people crazy. Either Conrad had found some footholds, or he'd kicked them into existence. He pulled the sword out as far as he could and forced it up further. The tip of the sword dragged up the thing's body, carving a glowing straight line. When the arm holding the sword was as high as it could go, Conrad drove the sword in again.

He pulled his left hand out of the muck—claws dripping with mud and water—reached up, and plunged it back in. The colossus swung its arm. I screamed —voice raw, seven pitches at once, all of them hysterical—"Conrad, look out!" Conrad saw the arm sailing toward him. He let go of the sword and pushed himself away from its body. As he dropped, the edge of the giant arm caught his still-raised arms, knocking them forward, and shoving him closer to the colossus.

The massive limb hit its body with as much force as it hit everything else. The colossus staggered, its foot passing within inches of where Conrad had landed. It swayed, trying to find its balance, using its other arm as a counter weight. Conrad shook himself and jumped to his feet while rolling both wrists and flexing his fingers. He glared up at the leaning giant, planning his next move. But the choice was taken out of his hands. There was a whisper coming from deeper in the swamp.

It grew to a low, endless roar as thousands of patters and splashes echoed through the trees. Off to my side, the lurkers poured in like a murky rapid. Hundreds of them. The first line swarmed the colossus, running up its legs as if they were nothing but slick trees. They scaled its chest, settling on its shoulders and head. Wherever they decided to stay, they opened their mouths wide and sank their fangs into the mud. Crooked threads of white lightning rolled over their skin.

The second group didn't bother climbing. They launched themselves at the thing's chest, barreling into it. Those that found a grip kept climbing. Those that fell shook themselves, climbed the nearby debris to get a better vantage, then threw themselves at it again. Conrad looked around, laughing louder than I'd ever heard him laugh, as more lurkers flooded past. I knew how he felt. I was laughing too—laughing at the absurdity of it all, and bubbling with a ridiculous hope. The littlest cavalry had arrived!

The colossus reeled under their attack. It was pushed one way, then dragged back as all the extra weight shifted. The colossus bent backwards, trying to rebalance its now top-heavy form. Conrad crouched, then sprinted toward the side of the colossus. I only had enough time to wonder what he was doing before he ran up a fallen tree that was wedged at an upright angle, supported by the still standing trees around it. It creaked and shook with every step. The branches trembled.

"Look out!" he yelled. The lurkers at the back of the colossus started dropping away or scrambling to get to the front. At the highest point on the tree, Conrad leapt. He stayed in the air for twice as long as I would have thought possible, then landed high on the thing's chest, between its shoulder and the place where the mountain of its head started sloping upward. He rammed his right hand deep into the mud. The colossus had been trying to sway so it'd be upright, but the force of Conrad's impact stopped it.

It bent backward again, its arms swinging high. The lurkers on the thing's back were leaping away, scattering as far and as fast as they could. Keeping his hand lodged in the colossus's shoulder, Conrad swung his body weight up and over the top. His claws tore a wide gash that wept water. The colossus bent back further. Its arms were straight up. For a moment it held itself there, straining against gravity. When it fell, it seemed to take forever, and when it landed, the ground quaked. Water lurched and waved.

All the lurkers that had run for safety turned and swarmed back, latching onto its head and arms. This is how they kill something bigger than them. Conrad let out a shout of effort and crawled from underneath its shoulder. The lurkers' eyes followed him as he used his claws to climb up its chest. He walked over to the sword hilt, still sticking out of the colossus's abdomen, yanked it out, and walked toward its head.

"Emerra!" he cried.

"I need you!" I ran. He drove the sword deep into its neck and used both hands to drag the upright blade toward its legs. By the time I had scrambled to the top of its chest, Conrad had finished his first incision and gone back to slice deeper.

"I'm here," I said.

"Find it," he panted.

"Find the pendant. It's magic?" I nodded.

"You should see it." I prayed that he was right—that it would still be giving off enough light for me to find it buried in all that muck. The colossus shifted beneath our feet. Conrad and I glanced at each other. We didn't speak, but we hurried. Conrad, ripping the sword through the mud, me, sitting against one edge of the gash and bracing both feet on the other edge to push the gap wider. Conrad stopped in the middle of his third pass.

"Mera!" I crawled over to him. He pointed. I looked down into the mud and tangle of roots. A strip of Lily Carver's face and chest was exposed. The sword had sliced down from her forehead, over her eye, along her cheek to her partially open mouth. The pale skin had parted like a smaller version of the canyon we'd been carving into the colossus, and a lazy line of blood had welled up without enough energy to drip. A bright blue light, shining from somewhere near her chest, made her blue lips look navy.

The colossus moved its legs. I gagged back a sudden swell of nausea and grief and dived my head and chest into the part of the incision above Lily's body. Conrad put a hand high on my legs to help keep me steady. Roots, leaves, and moss tickled my face and scalp as I struggled to reach. I raked back the mud at Lily's chest with one hand while using the other to keep from sliding further down. The blue light grew stronger. My fingers brushed a small cold stone carving.

I let go with my other hand and slid three inches. Conrad's hand tightened on my leg. As I dug into the muck to stop myself, the colossus moved. Its chest shifted. The walls of mud on both sides of me tightened. It already felt like I was being squeezed by the walls of a cave—then the cave started breathing. For a moment, all I knew was a fear so powerful that it blinded me to everything else. Then the walls around me relaxed. I snatched the pendant. Blue light bled out from between my fingers. I yanked.

The pendant came up, then stopped.

"Conrad!" My head was pounding from spending so long upside down.

"It's on a strap! I can't cut it!" Conrad laid down beside me, his arm over my back, and reached into the hole. The colossus moved again. This time the gap widened. I clutched the pendant as hard as I could and strained my other arm to keep a hold on the shifting wall. Conrad's hand followed my arm down. He felt around my fist, bent his hand back, then swiped it forward, snapping the strap with one of his claws. I felt the dull tip of his claw bite into the back of my thumb. I yanked up on the pendant again.

It came free.

"I've got it!" I yelled. Conrad pulled himself out first, then pulled me out. The two walls pressed together, then sheared along each other as the colossus struggled to raise one of its arms. With one hand, I tried to find something stable to grab. I used the other to pass Conrad the pendant. He considered it for a moment, then dropped it on the colossus, grabbed the sword, raised it, and brought it smashing down onto the pendant. The sharp edge of the sword met the stone. A white fissure appeared. Then spread.

The pendant shattered with a crack, as loud as a gunshot. At the same time, there was a burst of pure white light. I threw my arm over my eyes, but a gray-tinted image of the world burned itself onto the back of my eyeballs—through my arm, through my eyelids. The image faded slowly. All I could hear was my heavy breathing.

"Did we do it?" I asked. The colossus turned to its side and sat up. Conrad swore as the chest we were sitting on lifted to a new angle. He grabbed me under the arms, held me to his chest, jammed his free hand into the mud and his whole left leg into the now gaping incision. The sword slid away and dropped into the swamp. The lurkers that had been tossed free by the thing's movement tried to drag it back down, but this time it wasn't tottering on two feet.

It was braced with its lower body along the ground and one arm behind its back. The sword was gone. The colossus was still moving. The lurkers wouldn't be able to hold it. We had to do something! My chest clenched, concentrating all my fear, sadness, and frustration into something as small and solid as a marble. I could feel the density of it pressing against my heart. I didn't want to. I would have rather done anything else. But Kappa wasn't there to be protected.

He was in it with us, and I couldn't watch everything fall apart when I knew that he wanted to help.

"Kappa!" I screamed.

"Bring me the lamp!" I was tucked against Conrad's chest, so I couldn't see anything, and at first, all I could hear was Conrad grunting from the effort of maintaining his hold. Then I heard a series of soft pattering sounds—webbed hands and feet slapping against the mud. When Conrad felt me move, he eased his grip. I muttered a quick apology, then raised my leg and ground my sneaker into his thigh so I had something firm enough to maneuver on.

I pressed my weight up and turned so my hands and knees were on the chest of the colossus. The angle was steep. Without Conrad there, I would have slid off or broken my leg by getting it caught in the incision.

"Mera!" Kappa cried. I turned my head. There were three lurkers with him. He and two of the lurkers were gripping the lamp by the rim. The last was pushing it up from below with his head. Their figures were lit by a painfully bright light. The lamp was blazing again. Too much magic. I grabbed the lamp with my right hand and dragged it through the mud to bring it closer. The colossus started to shift. Let's get rid of some!

I hugged the bowl to my chest and stepped into the cleft of the incision while reaching out with my free hand to grab anything I could. My stomach lurched as I half slid, half fell until my foot got caught on something. I groped with my hand and found nothing. Mud. Roots thinner than a pencil line. Leaves. Slime. Something smooth and cold like clay. Cloth shifted beneath my fingers. My stomach lurched again. Is that where I was?

I grabbed onto Lily's hood and pulled myself deeper into the crevice, bringing the lamp with me. Wincing against the light, I shoved the lamp toward her. One last offering to a sad woman who was already gone. The whiteness swallowed me. It went beyond vision. I saw it with my eyes closed. I felt it pushing through my body, filling me up, spilling over. My whole world was white. Then everything went black.