Chapter 76 A Portrait of the Enemy

The wagon driver tried to charge Jin twice.

“You and the mug.”

“It's not a passenger.”

“Looks like it's judging me.”

Kessa put her bow case across her knees.

“He's joking.”

“I wasn't sure.” Jin climbed in. “I've met your local birds.”

Selene's message had included passage. The driver flicked the reins before Jin could offer to sell him a review.

They left Aster at nine. Jin had paid three silver to keep the inn room for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, put his purse back in the chest and brought his phone, knife and new mug. Kessa watched him tuck the mug safely between their bags before she sat beside him.

Two hours later, the wagon stopped beside a marsh that smelled of wet bark and bitter smoke.

Something enormous moved beyond the reeds.

Selene was standing knee-deep in water with her sword raised. A white barrier curved behind her, protecting the end of a narrow causeway. Three rangers were dragging a broken cart back across it.

She saw the wagon.

“Good. Leave the bags.”

The thing in the reeds lifted a face made of bark and tangled roots.

Then another face opened beside it.

Then a third.

Jin set the mug carefully on the wagon seat.

“Your letter undersold this.”

“It was smaller yesterday.”

The leftmost mouth had turned toward the last ranger on the causeway. Selene moved before it could spit the bundle of sharp reeds gathered beneath its tongue.

She cut across the water.

White light tore through the nearest face. Bark split. Reeds burst into flame along its jaw.

Something black slid beneath the surface before the blade reached it.

The empty face collapsed.

A new one rose farther left.

“Rootwight,” she said. “Demon inside a living reed bed. The faces are empty.”

Lark watched the black movement beneath the water.

“It moves the heart.”

A ranger had marked three stretches of root with strips of red wool. One lay severed beside the causeway; another had pulled a wooden peg out of the bank.

“We've cut the runners,” he said. “Not enough at once. It slips into the next one before we can follow.”

For provenance, the chapter belongs on the page where its author publishes it; this copy was made without permission.

Lark studied the stretches still trembling under the surface. Kessa moved to give herself a cleaner angle between them.

A broken peg rolled against Lark's boot. He passed it to Nell, who set it beside her chain and pointed toward the red markers still moving beneath the surface.

Selene nodded.

“I need it held in one place.”

Nell unwrapped her padded chain.

“Where's solid?”

She tested the bank with one boot before she put her weight on it. The top crust broke, showing black water underneath. Nell drew back, lifted her chain clear of the mud and waited for the ranger's answer.

A ranger pointed to a strip of stone beside the causeway. “Old washing steps. Rest is mud.”

Jin went with Nell. The nearest face turned to follow them, bark lips pulling apart around a throat full of little white roots.

“Hungry,” it said.

The word scraped through the air in a voice like wet wood breaking.

Jin stopped smiling.

Behind him, the last ranger got the cart onto the causeway. The white barrier flickered as something struck its outer face.

Selene held it, one hand out, her sword still low over the water.

Jin walked from the bottom washing stone to a dry stump three strides away. He returned, then walked four strides toward the causeway's stone footing. One start, two choices on the solid stone, replacing the sluice's empty starting mark.

Kessa took a place above the steps. Lark moved along the causeway, keeping Selene's unguarded side clear.

Jin took out his phone to check the angle beneath the creature's nearest face.

The private window arrived.

He stared.

The rootwight's face opened wider.

“I hate photography,” Jin told it.

Nell looked at him.

“What?”

“An old professional grievance.”

The first root hit the steps hard enough to throw water over his boots. He chose the stump route without the new attack mode and drove clear.

The root followed.

It punched through the space he'd just left, splitting the edge of the washing stone.

Jin landed at the stump and turned. The face leaned toward him, mouth stretching down the length of its own neck.

He held the phone high in his left hand, front camera facing them both.

His own muddy face appeared at the bottom of the screen. Above it, the demon's open mouth filled most of the frame.

“Higher,” he muttered.

It lunged.

He dropped beneath the bite. The teeth caught his raised sleeve and tore cloth from his forearm.

The picture blurred.

No receipt.

Nell's chain closed around the root neck. She planted her heels against the stone footing and pulled it away from him.

The face twisted toward her.

“That is not a plan,” she said through her teeth.

“It wasn't a good photograph either.”

Kessa's first arrow hit the ridge above the open mouth.

The face burst apart.

Nothing died.

Under the water, the black knot moved again.

Jin watched it pass beneath Nell's chain. Every empty root around it tightened before it crossed.

He looked at the unbroken half of the washing stone.

At the way the roots drew inward.

“The body tells us where it's going,” he shouted.

Lark turned toward him.

Jin pointed.

Three root cords had gone taut beneath the nearest face. They were pulling against a fourth, thicker strand leading back under the causeway.

The demon wasn't simply swimming.

It was hauling itself along its own roots.

Selene stepped into the water.

“Then cut the road.”