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With night descending, there was nothing to do but sleep. Aein stepped towards the fire pit as if in a trance and then stopped. Fire could only do so much to cremate the dead. The pit was filled with bones, the bones of their slaughtered fellows. She could not force herself to stay here. Death hung in the air. The smell of the ash was infused in every inch of the cursed place. The fog was beginning to build just outside the circle of the camp, as if trying to figure out the perfect time to creep in. She could not face the horrors of what it might play in her mind tonight, especially when reality was even more terrifying. She went into one of the shacks and grabbed a lantern from inside.
"Come on," she said to Lars.
He whined, unsure of what she was proposing.
"I can't stay here," Aein explained, gripping one arm tightly around her waist to keep herself from shaking. "We'll come back tomorrow when I can face this. But there are too many ghosts. I can't. Not tonight."
He whined again and Aein could tell he thought she was foolish, but he followed her, nevertheless, as she took the horses’ reins and led the animals out.
The swamp loomed before them and Aein was not sure if her unease was just the memories of what it once held or some form of actual malice that seemed to radiate from the darkness. The horses’ hooves struck the wooden planked road. The fog was crawling out from beneath the drowned trees. Its white fingers crept towards them, lapping their legs, and tangling through their limbs.
There should have been the sound of birds or frogs, but the swamp was eerily quiet, as if everything was in hiding, smothered beneath a blanket of fear. And then there was a sound.
"Do you hear that?" Aein whispered to Lars. He glanced up at her with worried eyes, but continued walking.
The sound became louder. It was screams and cries. The heavy breath of the monsters. The last noises of the battalion as they had been slaughtered. The fog replaying their final moments so that Aein would know the fate waiting for her if she stayed.
But the fog had played this trick before, and this time, it just strengthened her resolve to not leave the border unprotected when more that caused this sort of destruction could get through.
"It is just the fog," Aein stated for her own benefit. Lars's body was rigid with tension. Aein would have stopped to comfort him, but with the lantern in one hand and the reins of the horses in the other, all she could do was lean over and whisper, "Remember to breathe."
He took in a great gulp of air and whined.
"You are not alone," Aein reminded him.
But then Lars looked straight out into the shadows of the trees and a growl replaced the whine.
"We are not alone, are we?" Aein asked, realizing the fog was hiding something out there beyond just sound and fear. She said a silent prayer that Finn had made his way out of the swamp, that she would not stumble and look down and see it was his body she had tripped over.
Lars raised his mouth to the sky and let out a warning howl. His voice quieted as he waited for a response. Something large and lumberous shuffled through the branches and reeds. She put down the lantern and ran to her saddle bags to pull out her arrows and bow, even as the horses danced around in circles. There was no place to tie them up.
"If you bolt," she swore at them, "I'll feed you to the darkness myself."
Holding her spare arrows with her draw hand, she loaded the first onto the string. She didn't know if there would be enough time to use it. She unbuttoned the flap which kept her mace strapped to her side.
Aein looked down at Lars and nodded that she was ready. "Drive it away."
At once, he was off, snarling and breathing heavy as he crashed into the waters of the swamp. There was a yip of pain, but no sounds of struggle. She hoped maybe he just landed on a sharp rock as opposed to something with claws and fangs.
But then she heard the fight. There was a roar which shook the ground and the sound of something falling, which seemed as big as a tree. Whatever it was cried out in anger. The creature was getting closer. She aimed her arrow in the direction of the noise, trying to ignore the shooting pain from her old injury, trying to steady the shake of her weak arms.
Suddenly, the monster came into view.
It had the shape of a man, but seemed as tall as a mountain. He had one eye, set in the middle of his forehead. He was naked but covered in a thick pelt of his own fur. Lars was unable to pierce his hide, even with his massive jaws.
A cyclops. Aein swore.
She had been warned of these creatures when she began training. They were carnivores and happy to feast upon whatever meat they could crush in their fists. He most likely had been tracking them from the moment they stepped outside of the camp. Cyclops were not supposed to travel this close to the border. They stayed deeper in the swamp. Their hides were as tough as stone and they had few weaknesses - the tendon between their ankle and their single eye.
Aein pulled back and released her arrow. Her aim was off after so long without practice. The cyclops had been distracted, but not enough to ignore a projectile flying towards his only source of vision. He ducked, and with a sweep of his hand flung Lars into a rock with a sickening crunch. But there was no time for Aein to worry about him. The cyclops leaned forward and let out another mighty roar. She did not pause. She placed another arrow on the string and let it loose, praying that this one would fly true. The creature swatted it aside and kept coming towards her.
Aein pulled back another arrow and this one grazed his face. The monster was so close. She didn't know whether to keep firing her arrows or to cast her bow aside. She foolishly left her axe in her bedroll. Her blunt mace would be useless against him. But then Lars was back. Relief flooded through her as he flung himself upon the creature's tendon. The cyclops was off balance as he tried to shake and kick Lars off. He was distracted enough that he did not notice as Aein let her final arrow fly and it struck him through the white of his eye. Howling with pain, he stumbled off into the swamp, Lars fast upon his heels, nipping and biting and chasing him far away.
The silence he left behind was deafening. She collapsed onto the road. It felt like she had run a thousand miles. Though she had seen battle and slaughter, it was as if the swamp amplified her fear, amplified the danger to terrifying levels. She held out her fingers and they were trembling. She placed them upon her heart and was almost able to feel its pounding through her heavy breastplate.
Lars hauled himself out of the water. Panting, he sat down and pressed against her, as if the only payment he needed for all that he had done was an approving word, which she was happy to give.
"Thank you," she said as she ruffled his fur. "I have never heard of a cyclops so near the edge of the swamp before." She left unsaid that she worried what else might be waiting for them. As the adrenaline faded away, bone numbing exhaustion took its place. "We had better be going or I am going to fall asleep right here."
The horses had not fled and Aein wearily grabbed their reins. As they moved forward, each footstep seemed to hide a crackling twig, every shadow seemed to have fangs. Finally, they reached the entrance to the clearing which hid the sacred bush. As she stepped into the glen, it was as if all the horrors of the day were gone. There was a peace here, some sort of barrier from the rest of the swamp. She placed the lantern with its flickering light upon the ground and removed the saddles and supplies from the horses.
She took out her bedroll and placed it upon the ground. The night was cold. The air was damp. She knew she should dig a fire pit and get a flame going, but the thought was too much. She climbed in and hoped she would not freeze to death.
As if he could read her mind, Lars came over and climbed beneath the blanket with her. He was filthy and smelled of wet dog, but he radiated heat. She wrapped her body around his and burrowed her face into the soft warmth of his fur.
Before she drifted off, she almost began to laugh hysterically. This had only been the first day.