The Gravemarsh

  When morning light illuminated the Gravemarsh, the ranks of Lady Nesha’s forlorn band were revealed in full. Their group of a half-dozen who had departed from Yerkh had now grown to almost twenty.

  From what Vasilisa gathered from their talk, the motley of hangers-on came from all across the burning countryside to seek passage along the Cherech and begged their way onto the skiff. Some had brought their own supplies and silver, but most brought only their hungry stomachs - and yet Lady Nesha was unable to find it in her heart to turn any of them away. But what all newcomers brought with them was more news of the war - and none of it the same.

  Some said they had seen Prince Gvozden leading his druzhina in the field to personally hang the rebels, while others said the prince was cowering beneath his bedsheets as his city lay under siege. One man said the rebels were no more than a handful of boyars with foreign mercenaries and rapists in their company, while another said the entire realm and all of its spears had risen up to skewer the griffon of Gatchisk.

  Talk of the war was all that they had chattered about for the nine days they traveled up along the Cherech to safety and freedom - but when they reached the outskirts of Gatchisk…

  “They set the entire river aflame,” said Lady Nesha as she took a breath and sat next to Vasilisa. “We could not see who. But whoever it was, they blockaded the port with fire ships for a mile. And so we turned north - and sailed until we could no longer.”

  The boyar’s wife looked old - her face set with worry lines and her cheeks hollow from days of putting off food and sleep. In the shade of the trees, Nesha looked half a ghost herself - and Vasilisa dreaded the question she knew would come soon.

  Where is Vratislav?

  Where is my husband?

  Vasilisa saw the question lingering behind Nesha’s eyes even now - but the lady did not voice it aloud, not yet.

  As they talked, the Yerkh freeholders and their new compatriots gathered up deadwood from the marshes, lashing them together with reeds into a crude sled to drag their meager supplies - a few sacks of onions and turnips, spoiling fish, and three hard loaves of bread. The rest of the food pilfered from Balai’s stocks had either been eaten on the way, or was lost when the river boat was claimed by the muddy grasp of the Rovetshi marshlands, whose shallows and shifting banks deceived even seasoned navigators on occasion.

  “The food won’t last more than a day,” the boyar’s wife sighed as she looked on at Marmun and Valishin heaving the vegetables onto the sled. “Might be we could make it two or three, if some of the men are willing to go without. But food in their bellies was what kept them from fighting - as soon as some go hungry, they’ll be at each others’ throats.”

  “We needn’t stretch our supplies thin,” Vasilisa replied as she stood up and dusted the stray ash off her robe. “Rovetshi is close by - its ruler is my father’s man, loyal and true to our house.”

  “As loyal as Stribor was to Prince Gvozden?” asked Nesha with a raised eyebrow.

  Nesha’s words twisted uncomfortably in Vasilisa’s gut. She tried to picture boyar Hrabr and the last time she had spoken to him - or at the least, bowed and said a few murmured words as she did with all her father’s sworn men. It had been at the summer tournament in Belnopyl - where Stavr and Pyotr had won their place in her father’s druzhina. Boyar Hrabr had been one of the younger boyars in her father’s court, but was still old enough to be her father himself at twenty years her senior. She tried to grasp for what few bits and pieces she still remembered of him, but the boyar’s presence was vanishingly little in her memory. He was courteous enough in her company, sang as loudly as the rest of the men when drinking, and forgetfully adequate in the melee - not the first to fall, but neither did he show any valor that she could recall.

  Would such a man still hold true to her father - or at the very least, his liege’s daughter?

  “Perhaps,” she replied to Nesha’s pointed question. “Perhaps not. But Rovetshi is the only settlement around for miles, and it sits astride the only solid road through the marshes. If we try to pass around it…”

  The ground will swallow you up, she remembered Mariana’s voice long ago, when the old woman had schooled her in the domains under Belnopyl’s rule. Stray off the Marsh Lords’ path, and you’ll find Rovetshi a land of sucking mud, disappearing footholds, and endless creatures never recorded in the books. It’s the only land even the nomads fear - enough that they’d risk the mountains of the God Spine out west rather than the marshes.

  She looked at the milling peasants and freeholders who lingered by the gathered supplies, waiting to march on. In the days when Gatchisk and Belnopyl warred, the Rovetshi marshes were said to have swallowed entire armies whole within their watery embrace - a band of twenty shambling men and women would hardly even be a meal.

  “Nothing good will come of straying off the road,” she spoke to Nesha. “Walk off the Marsh Lords’ path, and you’ll find the bones of thousands of others who sought to avoid Rovetshi’s walls and its tolls. If there is even a small chance we can be granted safe passage from my father’s man, we should try.”

  Nesha sighed, then rubbed her tired eyes before standing up. “I still do not like this, my lady. These are times of treachery - and if your father and mother truly are dead…”

  They are not, Vasilisa wanted to reply sharply, but she held her tongue. It was enough that Nesha had to deal with leading her twenty lost souls alone for nine days, adrift and alone without her husband.

  She needs warmth and comfort, not bitterness and steel.

  But no words of comfort could spring to her mind - only numbness, and the pressing gloom of the marshes that lay ahead. When Nesha caught her breath, the lady of Yerkh set about corralling the peasants and setting a heading for the north. Vasilisa stepped to join her, and with Marmun and Valishin at the head of their band, they set forth into the waiting maw of the Rovetshi Marshes.

  Five miles left, it must be, Vasilisa thought to herself as she took her courser by the reins and led it along the Marsh Lord’s path. Five miles, and then no one can reach us. Not Stribor, not the Kangar…

  No…, she corrected herself. She saw the black fragments of the dead night sky falling to earth all over again in her mind - spreading their death from the heavens to the land below.

  The Dreamers. They will always find us.

  ***

  They all walked slowly through the Rovetshi Marshes - keeping in single file behind Marmun and Valishin as the two crept ahead, testing the ground before them with long oars every dozen steps. The treacherous ground grew even more moist underfoot, soon opened into wide, stagnant pools with water so dark it was impossible to see whether they ran a half-inch or a foot deep.

  The Marsh Lords’ road, for all its namesake, was little more than two faded ruts in the muddy ground reinforced every so often by duckboards - though half of the wooden planks were rotten and prone to snapping underfoot as they walked.

  But worse than the sinking road was the air, which became foul and heavy to breathe as they pressed deeper in. Every breath became a labor in itself, to say little of trying to walk through the gurgling mud which greedily sucked down at their feet - stubbornly refusing to let the trespassers go. The entire marsh seemed intent on keeping them to stay - and it was not long before they saw signs of those whom the marsh convinced to remain.

  The first skull peered up at them just off the side of the road - stained yellow-white and picked clean of flesh. Sitting askew atop its brow was a helmet rusted red through and through - though a man from Chernopol still made to reach for it, leaning perilously far over a stagnant pool to snatch the helm. As soon as his fingers brushed against the yellowed bone, the skull’s empty eyes flickered to life - two pinpricks of ghostly light shining in a deathly gaze.

  The man from Chernopol, Branimir, leapt back from the skull with a cry as the skull’s baleful gaze fell upon him - then pinpricks floated lazily up out of the skull, and the fireflies settled onto a moss-covered branch above.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Marmun guffawed. “That’ll teach you to disturb the dead, idiot.”

  Branimir staggered back to his feet, covered in slime and red up to the ears. “Feh, what use do the dead have for helmets? They’re long gone, and we’re still alive.”

  “You won’t be for much longer if you wear that piece of trash,” Vasilisa sighed. “One cut on your scalp from that rusted iron, and you’ll be dead long before you’ll ever see battle.”

  She remembered how one of her father’s servants - a potboy named Ostap - had turned into a writhing, frothing mess after he cut himself on a rusted kitchen knife. Despite all Mariana had done - her salves, her leeches, her healing - they had buried him on a plot on the outskirts of the city, where the other household servants were laid to rest. The sight of the burial grounds had left a bad taste in her mouth back then - and then she wondered whether there were enough souls in Belnopyl left to bury those that were lost.

  If the visions were true, then graves would run on for miles - she imagined thousands of pale faces peering lifelessly from the black earth, left to the worms and the Mother of the Earth.

  Or perhaps Belnopyl would become a city of the dead - ruled by carrion crow kings and starving boyar dogs.

  She shook herself free from the swirling thoughts, and turned back to Branimir as she saw him eyeing the helmet again. “Leave it - the ground and sky already want to kill us, and I would not add spirits to that list as well.”

  The peasant from Chernopol muttered and grumbled, but fell in with the others as they shambled past.

  The more Vasilisa looked for the skeletons as they walked, the more she saw - skulls and bones from wars and disasters years past lay scattered all about the dark pools and islands they crossed. It seemed a hundred pairs of empty eyes followed their every move - yellowed teeth bared in inviting grins.

  As the day drew to a close and the darkness of the marshes pressed in once more, their ragged column made camp once more upon another grassy knoll. All the wood the men could scavenge was wretchedly damp, and so their camp was sullen and cold when night fell. The last bits of bread and spoiling fish went to those who were weakest, and the others went without - reluctantly, but without a fight. When sleep came upon them, only the rustle of the high reeds in the wind and distant croaking remained to fill the empty spaces in the night.

  It felt as though both an eternity and a single breath had passed into the night when Marmun’s voice cut through the silence. “Wake up! Wake up, all of you!” he cried, startling their whole camp awake. “Look there!”

  As she opened her eyes Vasilisa realized how cold it had suddenly become in the marshes. It felt as though an icy wind had blown in, and yet the heavy smoke and mists hanging over the stagnant pools seemed to grow larger. A gust of wind blew across the high reeds, sounding with a hiss.

  She looked in the direction of Marmun’s shaking finger, and saw a dark shape in the mists. Vasilisa looked to and fro, and realized that they stood all around - dozens of figures, blacker than night, creeping steadily closer from behind the misty wall closing in around the hill. A terrible dread fell upon everyone - yet no-one screamed. No-one even dared to breathe.

  The largest of the dark figures seemed to loom up to the skies themselves. Through the mist Vasilisa saw two pale eyes, glowing like stars with a cold, dead light. Then there was a voice, deep and old, that shuddered from beneath the earth.

  Come! The voice called. It sounded like a chorus in perfect harmony - a thousand speaking as one. Come! The waters are warm, and the darkness calm!

  The looming shadow leaned over their hill, its shape bleeding across the mist-shrouded sky. The shadows twisted into the shape of a long arm, reaching out towards Marmun. The farmer stood stiff as a board, his breath coming in pale clouds.

  Come, lie with us for a thousand years!

  The fell hand reached to grasp Marmun’s face. Suddenly resolve sparked into her dead heart, and Vasilisa shook herself free from the spell. She closed her eyes, and saw the marsh once more laid out in burning flame before her eyes. The shadows were alive, brimming with a baleful light. And within the messy haze of the flickering light, she could make out the barest hints of their forms - warriors, travellers, and shamans, all of them clad in strange fur garb, like the tapestries of the ‘savages’ who were conquered by the Klyazmites when they came across the sea. But if they were alive, then they could be bent.

  She wavered, groping for the Shargaz, and then called out in a voice of scraping glass and crushing stone: “Halt.”

  Immediately the spectral hand recoiled, as if burned. Marmun fell onto his backside, and seemed to remember himself, scrambling back towards the others who stood huddled by the hill. A low, rotten breath sounded from the mists, and Vasilisa saw the other shadows beginning to press in faster, clawing their way up the hill. The biting cold grew deeper.

  Vasilisa raised the Shargaz - for all the good it would do. How could she cut the mist and cold air itself? She swung the wide stone blade to and fro, scattering the pressing mists, but the silhouettes reformed as quickly as they scattered. Then, a memory sparked to life. An abandoned town whose people were lost, drawn away by a terrible, beautiful song.

  That is the power of our Voice, she heard the dead man’s whisper sound in the back of her mind. That is our rule over the living and the dead. Use it!

  She planted the point of her sword into the soft earth, then looked to the cowering refugees behind her. Fear rolled off of them in waves, intoxicating and powerful. But she did not want them to fear her. Vasilisa searched her mind for an answer…and then she spoke again, softly, weaving the words of power subtly as she sang:

  Rest now, spirits, drift away,

  To waters cold where shadows stay.

  Dream in death of summers bright,

  And life before the endless night.

  Your time has passed, your tales are done,

  Like fleeting stars before the sun.

  Return, oh lost, to marsh’s deep,

  And in its arms find gentle sleep.

  With every word, laced with command beneath the softness of a child’s song, the shadows began to retreat. Overhead the hanging canopy of mist began to clear, and as the shadows sank back into the ground, the heavy cold lifted, replaced once more by the dense, oppressive humidity of the marshes. Vasilisa let out a slow, quiet breath - it was over.

  Then suddenly, she was surrounded by the others. Dozens of hands reached out to grasp her, tugging at her sleeves, her cloak, as if to confirm she had not disappeared into the mists with the rest of the foul spirits. Voices swelled in a chorus of awe, shouts of “Gods above, how did you do it?!”, interspersed with cries of “Bless you, my lady! Gods bless your soul!”

  “It is a miracle!” cried Valishin, holding one hand over his heart. “She speaks with spirits, like the priests of old!”

  Vasilisa froze beneath the touch of the crowd. The dead had obeyed her. And the living now clamored to worship her.

  “Enough!” Rang Nesha’s voice over the crowd, cutting through the religious fervor. The boyar’s widow swatted away the hands with an exasperated sigh. “My lady didn’t save you all just so you can crush her to death! We need rest, all of us. Morning will come swiftly, and we have far to go - so if you don’t want to get left behind, then off with the lot of you!”

  The crowd dispersed reluctantly, parting one or two at a time, though their eyes lingered on Vasilisa. They looked upon her as if she were something alien - no, something divine, above and beyond any title, any royal bloodline. And the feeling was not entirely unwelcome.

  Lady Nesha caught her gaze, nodding toward the gnarled roots of the Elder Oak. "Sit. Rest. That was more than enough work for one night."

  Vasilisa hesitated, then took a seat against the ancient trunk. She set the Shargaz down beside her, just within arm’s reach. The boyar widow crouched beside her, checking for eavesdroppers before speaking in a low whisper, "You saved us again, my lady. I won’t pretend to understand what you did, but we owe you our lives."

  How could she even begin to explain? And how could Lady Nesha even hope to understand? And if she did understand - would she still remain by her side? Vasilisa said nothing - and for the better.

  "Marmun’s too spooked to be of any use," Nesha continued. "I’ll have Galya or someone else take over. But you must sleep."

  "No, I’ll watch," Vasilisa murmured stubbornly.

  Lady Nesha frowned, but knew better than to argue. "Then wake someone to relieve you. You’ll do no one any good if you collapse on the road, my lady.”

  Vasilisa nodded. She did not promise.

  Lady Nesha studied her, then exhaled sharply and stood. "Don’t be foolish, my lady. Get some rest."

  The others drifted away into their meager resting places, wrapped in threadbare cloaks, huddled together - more for safety than warmth. Soon, the only sounds were the distant trill of marsh insects and the gentle shifting of bodies settling into uneasy sleep.

  Vasilisa watched, unmoving.

  The Gravemarsh was never truly silent - just as the deeps were not truly dead. The reeds rustled with the movements of unseen creatures. The water lapped softly against the banks. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called, low and mournful. But the hush of the night was different now, emptied of the whispers of the dead.

  And yet, Vasilisa could not shake the feeling that the spirits had merely retreated beyond her sight, waiting. Watching.

  She pulled the Shargaz closer, nestling it in the crook of her arm, and stared into the murky depths of the Gravemarsh. The world felt vast and endless, stretching beyond the mists, beyond the stars.

  She did not wake anyone.

  She did not sleep.