“I wanted to make more distance.”

  “Yes, well, Petre wants his hand back and I want one of the scavengers to find me a second pearl earring. You don’t always get what you want. I can see higher ground off that way.”

  He sighted along her outstretched arm. “Could be nothing more than a clump of taller trees.”

  Arianna ignored him and picked her way forward until she could put a hand on the weapon’s wrist, using her staff to point to where the clump of trees was silhouetted against the sky. When the weapon turned to him, Garrett nodded. He hated to admit it, but the healer was right. Petre needed to rest. A few moments later, when the weapon beckoned them forward, he was glad to go.

  The trees grew on a rough circle of higher ground nearly as large as the training corral at the Citadel. All seven grew in the same quarter of the island, surrounded by thorn bushes. It wouldn’t be worth the bloodshed to put them to the axe. Dead bracken, flattened into multiple circles in multiple sizes, covered the rest of the ground. Two boulders, one round, one plinth-like, nestled in the broadest arc of the eastern curve.

  When they found dry ground under the sod lifted for the fire pit, even the weapon looked relieved.

  * * *

  “I miss Kanalik,” Garrett sighed, his back against his pack, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea. “You never realize how much you’ve come to depend on a horse until he’s not there.”

  “He hates water,” Norik said flatly. “You couldn’t ride him in this.”

  “I know. But he was warm.”

  The temperature dropped further as the dark deepened and it soon became obvious they’d have to spend the night wrapped around each other. His feet painfully cold, even in dry socks, Garrett almost envied Petre, who’d be tucked between Malcolm on one side and Arianna on the other.

  “The better to keep an eye on his breathing,” she explained softly, waiting beside him as the boys got comfortable.

  “Do you stay this close to all your patients?” He didn’t mean anything by it, but he knew it was a mistake the moment the words left his mouth.

  Her eyes narrowed. “The ones who lose a hand and have to sleep in a swamp, yes.”

  As she strode away, Norik raised his brows and shook his head. “Is this you flirting?” he asked. “Because you burn it, if it is.”

  “I’m not flirting.”

  “Good.”

  “You’re sleeping on the other side of her.”

  “Color me surprised.”

  * * *

  Garrett half expected to wake to frost, but it was almost warm, even after he untangled himself from the pile of bodies. He stretched, pissed into the channel that ran past the southeast curve of the island—the water was already unsuitable for drinking so why not—froze for a moment, then tucked himself away as if he hadn’t seen movement from the corner of one eye. Not the something Malcolm had heard but perhaps the evidence of its passage. He walked over to where the weapon stood by the taller rock.

  Her chin was up, her nostrils flared, and muscles twitched and danced under her skin, evidence of the internal battle she fought to keep herself still. She reminded him of a bird dog with a scent, held in place by her master’s command.

  “I got a glimpse,” he said softly, placing her body in the way of anyone watching from the swamp. Provided they’d remained where he’d seen them. Thought he’d seen them. “What’s out there?”

  Frowning, she shook her head.

  “You don’t know?”

  She shrugged.

  He shifted enough to see past the weapon’s bulk, but hopefully not enough to be obvious. He could see thorn bushes and bracken swaying, a broken branch dangling from a tree, and lingering shadows, deeper and darker than they should have been. Either something large and silent had passed or a random and independent breeze, mage-crafted for no good reason, hid in the swamp.

  “Morning, sir.”

  “Malcolm.”

  He smiled as Malcolm staggered to the edge of dry land and fumbled with his trousers, turning aside to give what privacy he could. He turned again as the weapon surged past him, and swore as she hooked a massive arm around Malcolm’s waist, pulling him back to solid land. The edge of the island crumbled, clots of dirt splashing into the channel.

  Ripples stretched the oily sheen in multiple directions.

  The oily sheen was new.

  “Where the flame did that come from?”

  “War.”

  “I meant just now.”

  She made a contemplative noise and said, “Swamp.”

  Malcolm snickered.

  Garrett let it go. Testing his footing, he leaned over and looked into the water. He stroked a hand over his beard. His reflection did the same.

  Then his beard and hair grew gray. His cheeks hollowed. His eyes sank in. His skin pleated. He lost two teeth on the left side. His ears jutted out from the sides of his head, earrings emphasizing how long and dangling his lobes had become.

  The weapon’s hand broke his line of sight and she pushed him gently but inexorably back until he stood by Malcolm’s side, breathing as though he’d been running, not standing still. “What was that?”

  “Time.”

  “Like the mage-crafted time that slowed the walking woman?”

  “Yes.” She waved an arm. “All here.”

  “All over the swamp?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you saying there’s patches of time out of joint all over the swamp?” Arianna asked.

  He hadn’t heard Arianna join them.

  “Yes.”

  “And if we fall into one?” He fought the urge to move to the center of the island and stay there. The woman in the water had been slowed. His reflection had aged at high speed.

  The weapon shrugged.

  Arianna smiled proudly.

  * * *

  The sky was a solid sheet of muddy gray.

  “I think it’s going to rain.”

  Garrett glanced over at Petre, carefully stepping from one hummock to another as they left the island. “What makes you say that?”

  “My wrist hurts.” Garrett blinked and Petre laughed, soft and breathy. “Get it, my lord? Like a wound that tells the weather.”

  “That’ll be useful.” Not as useful as a hand, but he was pleased Petre could joke about it. Despair killed as surely as blood loss, if not as quickly. Not that he approved of the message. His boots were already wet and they’d barely set out.

  “Garrett.”

  He raised a hand to hold the others in place before he moved as quickly as possible up to Norik’s side.

  “Look there.”

  It looked like a footprint. A large footprint filled with water, surrounded by water. Then the water rose a bit further, and it was gone.

  “Look familiar to you?” Norik nodded toward the weapon. “You think she was wandering around out here last night?”

  If he squinted, he thought he could still see the imprint of individual toes. “She was on watch. If she thought something was heading in, she might have headed out to cut it off.”

  “You going to ask her?”

  “No.”

  Norik made a noncommittal sound. “Why not?”

  “We need to trust her to do her job.”

  “She can’t disobey you.”

  “I know.” His father wouldn’t have trusted her.

  But if she hadn’t left the island, what then?

  * * *

  The air grew damper. Then the dampness separated into individual drops. Cold water dribbled down the back of his neck, sending a line of ice under the layers intended to keep him warm and dry.

  “Next time,” he grumbled, shifting his shoulders under the weight of his pack, “we do this in the summer.”

  Norik snorted. “Next time, it won’t be our . . .”

  Garrett froze as a howl cut off the end of Norik’s response. He’d have liked to call it a distant noise, but it was uncomfortably close. “More lizard-dogs?” he asked, lowering his foot into the water as quietly as possible.

  The weapon stood so still he wondered, just for a moment, if she’d been caught in mage-craft. Then her shoulders sagged and she said, “No.”

  No. He’d known it hadn’t been lizard-dogs. Rather than braided cries announcing the strength of a hunting pack, this had been a single, deeper voice, undulating up and down the scale like one of the singers his father had brought in from Southport.

  “It sounded . . .” Arianna paused, frowned, and shook her head.

  “You recognize it?”

  “No.”

  For all their voices were nothing alike, the healer’s denial sounded remarkably like the weapon’s.

  He counted his heartbeat while they waited for the howl to sound again. At ninety he said, “Let’s go. We might as well be a moving target.”

  He might have heard splashing in the distance. It might have been nothing.

  * * *

  When they stopped at midday, Petre’s face had grayed, his eyes had sunk into purple shadows, and flecks of dried blood darkened the curve of his lower lip where his teeth had closed on soft flesh.

  Garrett leaned close and pitched his voice for Norik’s ears alone. “She could carry him.”

  “The healer? She’s stronger than she looks, but . . .”

  “The weapon, you ass.”

  Norik snorted. “She’d have to drop him if we’re attacked. Still . . .” He chewed and swallowed a piece of jerky. “. . . lying at her feet’s probably the safest place in the swamp.”

  “Unless she steps on him.”

  “There’s that.”

  “The two of them could stay here.”

  “Petre and the weapon?”

  “We could pick them up on the way back,” Garrett continued, ignoring the question. Norik flaming well knew who he was talking about. “The weapon could find them again.”

  “Or find their corpses, if whatever’s out there howling finds them first.”

  “Could be a frog. Some frogs have huge voices.”

  Both Norik’s brows went up. “And feet?”

  Garrett ignored that too. “Petre needs rest and warmth. He won’t get that if we go on, or go back.”

  “So the weapon carries him?”

  They turned together to watch the weapon chew something she’d pulled out of the mud.

  Garrett sighed. “Looks like that’s the best we can do.”

  * * *

  “No.” Petre’s chin rose. “I lost a hand, not a foot. I can walk.”

  “Now,” Garrett agreed. “But the going will be easier once we’re on dry land, so the weapon . . . so Uvili will carry you out of the swamp and you’ll walk when every step doesn’t take the effort of a half day’s march.”

  “And if we’re attacked?”

  “You think she can’t deal with anything that’s stupid enough to attack the strongest member of the party first?”

  Petre glanced over at the weapon, who blinked at him. Garrett didn’t find that particularly comforting, but Petre’s shoulders came down as he visibly relaxed. “I guess she’ll have time to put me down.”

  * * *

  They could see the land ahead rising, but darkness fell before they reached the edge of the swamp. Garrett had decided to keep going, regardless of the potential pitfalls—literally pitfalls, the world had dropped away under his feet that afternoon and only Norik’s quick reaction had kept him from sinking into the suddenly loose mud—but agreed to stop when they found another island, smaller than the one they’d spent their first night on, but just as dry.

  Petre looked a lot better.

  “He fell asleep,” Arianna told him, as Petre hurried away from the weapon, his cheeks dark.

  It took Garrett a moment to recognize the expression on the weapon’s face. She didn’t know what she’d done to drive Petre away. As Malcolm offered to hold Petre’s dick and got a punch in the arm from his friend’s remaining fist, Garrett crossed to her side. “He’s embarrassed.” When she turned to face him, he nodded toward Petre. “He doesn’t want you to think he’s weak. It might be best if you stay away from him for a while until he gets over himself.”

  She frowned, then she nodded and moved as far in the opposite direction as the island allowed.

  It allowed enough distance that when the edge collapsed under Petre’s feet as the other island’s had under Malcolm’s, she wasn’t close enough. She managed to grab hold of the worn hem of his jacket.

  The ragged edge tore.

  Petre twisted as he hit the water, his hair suddenly gray, then gone—showing scalp then skull. He was a rotting corpse by the time he was fully submerged.

  “No!” Arianna’s hand held the weapon in place the way his hadn’t. “He’s dead and we don’t know what the mage-craft will do to you!”

  Malcolm sobbed, wrapped in Norik’s arms.

  Garrett could see the gleam of bone under the water’s oily surface. He couldn’t stop thinking of how Petre’s beard hadn’t yet grown together under his chin, the bare skin exposed by his defiance when he argued against being carried. He wanted to scoop out the bones and take them home, but he couldn’t.

  The loss of a hand wouldn’t have been enough to stop Petre from riding back to Marsanport with them.

  He hated himself for realizing they could move faster now.

  RYAN.NOW

  Ryan would have had them on the road at dawn, but, as irritated as he was by the delays, he didn’t want to kill Scholar Gearing, so they waited until the sun was a handspan above the horizon before waking the old man. Exhaustion had granted him a better night than the rest of them. Ryan had dreamed of the Black Flame engulfing Marsanport, Keetin had muttered about stones piled on his chest, and Lyelee had been smiling both in her sleep and after she woke, a sharp bared-teeth expression that made the hair lift on the back of Ryan’s neck.

  * * *

  “Is that the swamp where Petre D’Certif-cee died?” When Nonee turned, frowning, Lyelee rolled her eyes. “According to the chronicle, he died in a swamp in sight of dry land that led to the mage-tower and the fuel.” She waved toward the fetid water, tufts of coarse grasses, and dead trees that stretched off on the left of the road. “Swamp.” And then toward the headland. “Mage-tower that holds the fuel.”

  “Yes.” Nonee’s fists opened and closed by her sides. “And no. This is probably the swamp. But a different part of the swamp.”

  “It was possibly the swamp on top of the plateau,” Ryan reminded her.

  She shrugged. “It smells the same.”

  “The type of mage-craft that killed him appeared at the previous campsite as well,” Lyelee said before Ryan could argue that all swamps smelled the same. “Do you think it was drawn to intruders in its territory?”

  Nonee exhaled a long breath. “Yes.”

  Ryan frowned. The chronicle reported that Petre had been killed by lingering mage-craft that had appeared like an oil slick on the water. It said nothing about any mage-craft appearing at the previous camp. But Nonee confirmed it had happened. Where had Lyelee learned about it?

  “So the mage-craft,” Lyelee continued, “and according to the chronicle, this was pure mage-craft not a creature, has agency?”

  “No.”

  “Then the land itself has agency?”

  Nonee stared into the swamp for a moment. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” Lyelee repeated, rolling her eyes. “I’ll need to conduct a few tests, and see if . . .”

  “You didn’t think to tell us that before?” Ryan interrupted. “That maybe the Broken Lands would be actively not only passively trying to kill us?”

  Lyelee sputtered but Nonee swung around to face him. “Does it matter? You knew the land kills, knew it would kill at least some of your company, and you came anyway.”

  “I had to!”

  “Did you?”

  “If the Black Flame goes out, Marsanport will fall!”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” Because that was what he’d been taught. What they’d all been taught. He jabbed a finger in Nonee’s direction. “Stop asking me questions I can’t answer!”

  “Let’s pick up the pace.” Keetin raised his voice and Ryan wondered if the swamp was listening. “The sooner we get the fuel, the sooner we’re out of here, and the happier I’ll be.”

  * * *

  As the road reached its lowest point, it became a barricade between the swamp on one side and a harbor on the other. A lane nearly filled in with boulders and dead, broken trees led to a low building.

  The Lord Protector had taken shelter from a storm in a building down a lane just past a bridge.

  The road continued toward a stone bridge that arced over the channel where the swamp spilled into the harbor.

  “Nonee, is that,” Ryan began.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll stay well away, then.”

  “Good.”

  “Wait just one minute!” Gearing protested, indignation giving him strength. “We need to search for surviving evidence in order to expand our knowledge of . . .”

  “No.”

  “You don’t tell me no.” Gearing folded his arms and scowled. “If we can confirm . . .” A roar out of the swamp cut him off. He staggered back, as though the sound had applied an actual physical force.

  All three guardians had their weapons up and ready before Ryan managed to fumble his sword free.

  A boulder arced out of the swamp and smashed onto the road. The road held, the boulder shattered. He thought he heard bells chiming and then realized it was the sound of stone fragments hitting scale armor.