Part XI – The Marsh Road
The march south began before sunrise.
Mist clung to the ground like wet linen, swallowing their feet as they moved. The column stretched thin along the riverbank—soldiers, refugees, wounded carried in carts that squealed with every turn of the wheel. The bridge lay behind them, still smoldering, its reflection a broken wound on the water.
No one spoke. The sound of boots in mud was enough.
Luk walked near the rear, Anna asleep on his back beneath a threadbare cloak. Her small breaths were steady against his neck, a rhythm he clung to. Every few steps, the pain in his calf flared, sharp as glass, where the goblin's claws had torn through the skin. He'd tied it tight, but the bandage was soaked dark through.
He didn't tell anyone.
–––
The land changed as they moved south. The river split into tributaries, each thinner and slower, until the ground itself began to rot. Trees grew crooked, roots half-sunken in the black water. The air smelled of iron and decay.
Delun rode ahead, armor still dented from the siege, his face unreadable. He said little beyond orders—when to stop, when to light torches, when to stay silent. His soldiers obeyed without question. They looked like men who'd forgotten what rest felt like.
Valen, riding behind the commander, had discarded his scorched cloak but not his guilt. His eyes never stopped scanning the mist. Every rustle, every ripple of water drew his sword halfway from its sheath.
Luk couldn't blame him. The marsh didn't feel empty.
Once, Anna stirred in her sleep and whispered something—soft, too quiet to catch. Luk leaned closer. It sounded like "fire," but she was already asleep again, fingers gripping his shoulder.
He told himself it was just a dream.
–––
By midmorning, the sun was a dull smear above the fog. The road, if it could be called that, had dissolved into a path of slick boards laid over black water. Every few yards, one of the boards gave way with a hollow splash.
The smell worsened—wet soil, algae, something faintly sweet and rotten. The marsh buzzed with flies, drawn by the stench of bodies not yet buried.
They stopped at what passed for dry land—a mound of reeds and old stones that might once have been a bridge post. Delun raised a hand, signaling rest.
Luk lowered Anna gently beside one of the carts. She woke with a start, blinking at the mist.
"Are we there?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Almost."
She looked around. "It doesn't look like home."
"It isn't," he said quietly.
–––
Valen approached, kneeling to check Luk's leg. "That's bad," he muttered, pulling away the bandage. The wound was red, swollen, edges darkened with something that looked too black to be blood.
"It's fine," Luk said, though his voice wavered. "It'll close on its own."
"Not like that it won't." Valen tore a strip from his sleeve and rewrapped it tighter. "You'll slow the column if it festers. Tell Delun before it spreads."
Luk shook his head. "If I do, he'll leave me."
Valen met his eyes. "Then don't limp where he can see it."
He straightened and turned away, voice lower now. "You're lucky it didn't hit bone. Goblin claws carry filth—disease, rot, worse. I've seen men lose legs by pretending they were fine."
Luk didn't answer. He already knew that. He just couldn't afford to care. Anna needed him walking.
–––
As the day dragged on, the mist thickened until the world shrank to ten paces of gray. The soldiers tied ropes between them so no one would vanish into the fog. Once, they passed the half-sunk ruins of a waystation—stone steps leading nowhere, half-swallowed by reeds.
"Used to be a watchpost," Valen said quietly. "Before the marsh grew this far north."
"What happened to it?" Luk asked.
"The same thing that happens to everything out here," Valen said. "It sinks."
A sound rippled through the fog ahead—metal striking metal. The column stopped.
Delun raised his hand. "Spears out. Hold formation."
The clank came again. Then a voice. Not goblin—too steady, too human.
"Commander Delun?"
A shape emerged from the mist—a figure in armor slick with mud, carrying a broken standard. The man stumbled forward and dropped to one knee. His armor bore the same crest as Delun's, but older, rusted along the edges.
"Report," Delun ordered.
The man lifted his head, face streaked with dried blood. "Lionroar detachment, sir. Outpost south of the ridge. We held as long as we could."
"How many left?"
The soldier hesitated. "None, sir. Only me."
–––
A silence followed. Even the insects seemed to pause.
Delun studied him for a long moment, then motioned to Valen. "See him tended. Then burn the crest off his armor."
Valen frowned. "Commander?"
"If he was the only survivor, the enemy knows our sigils now. No point advertising what's already dead."
Valen hesitated, then obeyed.
Luk watched the exchange, unease creeping up his spine. These men—his supposed to be protectors—spoke of the dead as if they were inventory. Maybe that was the only way to survive it.
He looked down at Anna, who was tracing lines in the mud with a stick. She drew a circle, then another, smaller one inside it.
"What's that?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Something I saw."
"In a dream?"
She nodded.
Luk glanced at the symbol—a ring, wrapped in smaller loops like chains. It looked familiar, though he couldn't say why. He rubbed it out quickly with his boot before anyone else saw.
"Don't draw that again," he said quietly. "Not here."
–––
By nightfall, the fog had turned blue under the moonlight. The marsh hummed with frogs and unseen wings. The campfires burned low, their reflections rippling in the shallow pools around them.
Luk sat awake beside Anna, eyes on the dark water. His wound throbbed, hot beneath the bandage. Each pulse sent a faint tremor through his leg, as if something deep under the skin were moving.
He told himself it was just fever.
Across the camp, Delun and Valen stood near the edge of the firelight, voices low. Luk couldn't hear the words, but he could read their faces—argument restrained by exhaustion.
He saw Delun glance toward the wounded, toward him, and say something sharp. Valen shook his head.
The commander turned away first. The knight stayed where he was, looking out into the fog.
Luk didn't know what either of them feared more—the goblins behind them or whatever lay waiting ahead.
–––
Sleep came fitfully. The mist seemed to move even when the air was still. At one point, he woke to the sound of water shifting just beyond the camp's edge. He raised his head and saw ripples spreading across the surface, slow and wide, though no stone had fallen.
Something beneath, maybe. Something stirring.
He reached for his knife, but the sound stopped. Only the quiet remained.
When he looked toward Anna, she was awake, watching the same place in the dark. Her eyes reflected the faint glow of the dying fire.
"Go back to sleep," he whispered.
She didn't answer.
Her gaze stayed fixed on the water, unblinking.