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Chapter Sixteen

Oskar

The howls were a long way off, but they echoed through the swamp, popping Oskar’s bubble of soft and sweet and hiked-up skirt and Guinevere.

He drew back, wrenching his mouth from the pulse point in her throat, and it immediately felt like a mistake. First of all, because he hadn’t wanted to, and secondly—

Secondly, because looking at her, in the dim light of orcish vision, made every muscle in his body want to reach for her again.

Guinevere was a mess, pupils blown wide with arousal, lips wet and swollen from his kisses, nipples hard beneath her dress. The sight of those little peaks made Oskar’s hands itch to be on them again.

It was the howling that restored his sanity.

A low and predatory chorus that curled through the endless miles of bog along with the shadows of the deep, humid night, unsettling the horses.

The source could not be determined, but everything that lurked within Labenda was some degree of harmful.

The open swamp was certainly no place to be letting one’s guard down.

No place to be fondling one’s traveling companion.

“I have to return to my post.” He uttered the words as though he were trying to convince himself. “You have to get off my lap.”

Guinevere nodded mutely and complied. Her squirming rubbed her against his erection one last time, eliciting a frustrated, hitched moan that spilled from her kiss-stung lips like an obscene prayer. Oskar gritted his teeth so ferociously that he was mildly surprised he didn’t crack his molars.

She scooted away from him and he stood up, and he felt the loss of her like a punch to the gut.

Last time I ever try to console a crying woman, he grumbled to himself as he walked back to his lookout point to resume a forgotten duty. Yet there was an ache in his heart that called that particular piece of bluster out for what it was.

They could barely meet each other’s eyes the next morning.

Fortunately, there was too much to do to get embroiled in a difficult conversation about Things That Should Not Have Happened Last Night.

They traveled on foot, carefully guiding the horses over the marshy ground with its myriad obstacles of large roots, quicksand, and fly-flecked animal carcasses.

The mosquitoes descended upon them with a vengeance, clouds of black specks that buzzed in their ears and all over their exposed skin.

Guinevere managed to hold her peace far longer than Oskar thought she would. At the two-hour mark, she slapped at her nose. “Oh, this is utterly beastly!”

He fought back a snort. She turned to him, an unhappy expression on that ethereal, copper-skinned face. There was a tiny welt on the tip of her pert nose, the latest addition to her collection.

“How come they’re not biting you ?” she demanded.

“They’re trying.” But his skin was much tougher than hers. He surveyed the bumps all over her delicate face and the backs of her lovely hands, and he contemplated how long it would take to murder every mosquito in the swamp. “We’ll get you some salve at Berleben.”

“If we ever find it.” She grimaced. “I apologize. I’m not being a very good adventurer, am I? You shall hear no more complaints from me henceforth— what have I stepped on?”

“Best not to think about it,” Oskar quipped as the pungent odor of newly disturbed fecal matter permeated the air. At least she was breaking in her new boots.

As it turned out, though, he wasn’t being a particularly competent adventurer, either. He was so distracted by her that he forgot a cardinal rule of traveling through the wilderness: when there was fresh shit, the one who shat wasn’t far away.

The troll reared up from out of the murk. It was colossal. Bulbous. Its hair hung in mossy strings, and its body was a mass of pustules.

It had crashed through the undergrowth right in front of them, roaring, baring razor-sharp fangs, ready to attack. The horses screamed, and Guinevere screamed, and Oskar’s hand was flying to his sword hilt before he remembered that he didn’t have a single damn sword left —

Then Guinevere’s scream tapered off into a series of violent coughs. And she started…spitting.

The troll froze. The horses froze. Oskar froze.

“I swallowed a mosquito!” Guinevere wailed, on the verge of tears.

“Several mosquitoes! First the bandits and losing the wagon and the oxen, then nearly getting caught up in a gang fight, then the mercenaries, then the excrement, and now—now you !” Drawing herself up to her full height, looking every inch a vengeful, bedraggled queen, she pointed a shaking finger at the stunned troll.

“You and the mosquitoes! By the six approved gods, I have had it! This truly is the last straw. My feet hurt, and my mouth tastes like bugs, and—actually, now that I think about it, I forgot to pack a hairbrush! ”

Apparently, her right foot didn’t hurt too much to prevent her from stomping it, sending up a spray of swamp water.

The troll was used to its victims running away or fighting back…

It was not used to a pint-sized lady from the Dwendalian capital throwing a tantrum with all the righteous ire of the upper class.

It blinked its dull red eyes, clearly struggling to make sense of this unfathomable new situation.

Oskar loosed an arrow at its throat.

The troll staggered, its bellows shaking the treetops, the feathered shaft vibrating in its gullet. It frantically swiped one enormous, clawed hand toward Guinevere.

The vines stopped it. They erupted from out of the waterlogged ground in a swirling mass of thick green tendrils, anchoring the troll’s arms in place, wrapping around its legs. It put up a struggle, but the vines only coiled tighter in response to its every spasm.

Oskar’s next arrow sank deep into its chest. The vines fell away, and, with one final groan, the troll collapsed at Guinevere’s feet. But Oskar didn’t relax. Not yet. He knew magic when he saw it. He notched his bow again and swung around, taking aim at the spellcaster.

Or he would have, if he could see them.

The swamp was a muddle of earth colors in the wan morning light.

It took far too long to spot the brown-cloaked shape lounging underneath the banyans.

When his brain finally assembled the figure out of the bark and the roots, out of the moss and the rocks, it was all Oskar could do to not let out a wail of utmost despair.

Anything but this. Anything but one of… them.

There were various types of magic users throughout the world of Exandria.

There were the relic smiths, who infused eldritch power into their wondrous mechanical creations; the divine healers, who sewed up skin and mended bone with the blessing of their gods; the fathombound, who sold their souls to dark, otherworldly beings; the arcanists, who stretched the limits of magic with their noses buried in books.

Then there were the wild mages, whose powers came from nature. Many of them disavowed violence and meat. They voluntarily withdrew from civilization to live as hermits, in harmony with the wilderness. People called them the wardens of the forest.

Oskar called them bloody treehuggers.

There was no mistaking them, really. They were generally unkempt and covered in grime, with a certain light in their eyes—not madness, but close to it. The glint of someone who had gone many moons without talking to another sentient being.

This particular warden was no different.

He was of the feygiant race, which—well, if anyone had to be a warden, it might as well be the reclusive feygiants, who were rarely truly at home in the cities, anyway.

His towering physique would have been imposing had his floppy ears and broad pink nose not contributed to an illusion of perpetual gangliness.

Everything about him was hair, from the pale gray fur that covered every inch of his skin, to the golden beard that twitched with all manner of insects, to the tufts on his bare toes.

The feygiant didn’t seem all that concerned about the arrow being pointed at him. His hazel eyes were trained over Oskar’s shoulder. He was frowning at the sight of the dead troll.

“There was no need to spill blood,” he chided Oskar in a raspy voice that sounded like some drowsy creature burrowing into a pile of leaves. “I could have calmed it.”

“It was inches from her,” Oskar said tersely. “I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

The feygiant’s frown softened. “You guard her as I guard the forest. That, I can understand.”

Guinevere turned a very fetching shade of pink. Judging from the heat suffusing his own cheeks, Oskar knew he was pink, too, although probably less fetching. He returned the arrow to its quiver and the bow to his back.

“We’re looking for Berleben,” he told the feygiant. “Could you point us to the road?”

But the other man had stopped paying attention to him. He was studying Guinevere with keen interest. “You have…something,” he mused. “The troll stopped and listened to you. That usually doesn’t happen, unless—”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Guinevere hastily interrupted. “I surprised it with my carrying on, that’s all.”

“No need for honorifics. My name is Elaras.”

Guinevere flashed a shy smile and then very prettily introduced herself, Oskar, and the horses.

Pudding and Vindicator were absolutely taken with Elaras, and he with them.

They nuzzled at him, and he petted them and clutched both their reins in his hand, and even though Oskar had been the one to ask the question, he addressed his response to Guinevere.

“You are quite a bit off course. The Bromkiln Byway is another two hours from here, as the crow flies. But I shall be honored to guide you.”

“Oh, we couldn’t possibly,” she demurred. “It’s so much trouble…”

“Not at all,” replied Elaras. He cast a derogatory glance at Oskar. “At least this way, no more hapless beasts need perish.”

He and Guinevere set off, chatting happily, the horses in tow. Oskar was left to trail after them, thinking dark thoughts about how much he hated treehuggers. But his sudden extraneity also gave him a chance to reflect on Guinevere’s behavior.

The first time he saw her, she’d been on fire.

The night of the bandit attack, her eyes flashing, her hair lifting in an unnatural wind, the spirit surging out of her form.

He’d been awed by such raw magic, until she’d failed to call upon it when the bandit leader grabbed her, and Oskar had to step in.

Then he’d brought up making a fire, in the cave, and she’d said that they didn’t have any kindling. As though she couldn’t summon flames with a snap of her fingers.

To be fair, she probably couldn’t—that much had become apparent as the days wore on, as he learned more about what kind of parents she had, as her wildfire hadn’t blazed into existence during the mercenary attack.

There was no room for magic lessons amidst all the napkin folding and the curtsying.

Back in the cave, instinct had warned Oskar not to pressure her into talking about her wildfire spirit, and he was glad that he’d listened.

The way she’d cut Elaras off just now, it was obvious that she wanted to keep her abilities a secret.

From everyone. Including Oskar.

He couldn’t deny that it hurt a little. But she would tell him when she was ready…and if that day never came, what of it? She owed him nothing.