“Move! Move!” Cheekham called to his year-mates ahead of him and leapt once more. His strong legs clenched and he sprang again, and again while the crack of musket fire flared through the dense swamp.
Beside him, Bulbitte tumbled, his webbed foot snagged on a fallen branch, while Terc leapt clear of both the branch and her comrade.
Hoarm cried out, a spray of red foam trailing as her crumpled body dropped and twitched.
There was no stopping to help. Cheekham knew their orders, keep going, they must raise the alarm. Life came from the Marsh and life returned to the Marsh. That was the way of things.
“Raiders! Raiders!” he cried.
He hoped the north guard sentries heard him. He hoped he’d sounded the warning in time. Humans had invaded the Marsh and none of the Folk were safe.
The trees thinned suddenly, and a muddy stream was before them. He didn’t hesitate but dove in and dove deep. He felt the others hit the water behind him. How many? He didn’t stop to count but powered his legs propelling through the murky depths just like he’d practiced. The humans couldn’t follow them here.
But there were other dangers in the water. On the land. In the sky. The Marsh had always been an unforgiving home.
He tried not to think about it. He tried to remember why he’d volunteered as a scout for Rasc’s Forces of Rana with a dozen of his year-mates. If he made it out of this alive, he would go back to his quiet corner of the marsh. He was no soldier. It was foolish to think they could stand up to the humans.
“Life came from the Marsh and life returned to the Marsh. That was the way of things.”
Many hours later, shaken and exhausted Cheekham returned to his hut and breathed the sigh of safety. The peace of the Marsh eased the fear from his lungs. He removed the leather chest plate and tossed it in the corner. A chest plate hadn’t saved Hoarm’s life.
Outside, he let his feet sink into the cool mud on the bank of the stream, grateful once more that he could enjoy this simple pleasure. He tended his lilies, harvested the fly ponds and settled to mending his fishnets, letting these simple tasks shed the anger from his body. He tried not to think of his fallen comrade, his year-mate, Hoarm and hoped that Bulbitte and Terc made it home alive.
The sun drifted down lighting the floating white seed heads that escaped from the reeds. A sleepy breeze stirred the tall grasses, whispering comfort, while the stream lapped against the shore, easy as a heartbeat. He was never more grateful to be home.
Soon, the small creatures started their chirps, buzzing and chitters as a prelude to the Marsh beginning her night time song.
Cheekham put away his nets and lit the swamp glow lamp by his door. He heard the sweet chirps of the Folk downstream at Black Gum Flats, the deep drawl out of Red Willow Grove and waited for the double-croak of his folk, the Great Leap of Sweet Grass Flats.
“Reep! Reep!” he called but there was no answering call.
“Reep! Reep!” he called again.
Nothing.
Cheekham shivered. Where had everyone gone?
He left his hut intending to look for his friends, his year-mates, but then he heard the Marsh Thrush trill. It was the rallying signal for Rasc’s followers to gather. “Running after Rasc will get me killed,” he said to the lilies.
But maybe he would find his folk, the Great Leap, at the rally? Maybe his year-mates would be there?
Cheekham poled his small raft along twisting waterways, deeper into the Marsh, lit by the swamp glow lamp, hanging from a mast at the centre of his raft. Soon he saw other rafts going in the same direction as him. The weaving courses straightened and passed between two moss-covered stone structures, relics of the past, Rana past, or so it was whispered among the folk. Cheekham could not believe his ancestors had crafted such monuments. Now folk lived in reed huts. More likely it was a story told to bolster Rana courage and do what Rasc wanted them to do. Cheekham was careful to keep his own counsel on such thoughts.
More of the relics appeared around him and the streams glowed, lit by the tiny phosphorescent creatures that lived in these waters. He remembered eating one as a dare when he was little more than a tadpole. It tasted terrible, and he’d been sick all the next day.
He tied off his raft with a dozen others and joined the convergence, giving a tentative, “Reep. Reep” and hoping to hear an answer from one of his own. There was nothing.
He climbed the worn stone steps that lead to the top of the ancient amphitheatre where they usually met to listen to Rasc rouse the folk to put off their oppressor and claim back the marsh from the humans. Today was different. A crew of massive toads, Rasc’s Storm Guard, decked in scaled chest plates and carrying long tridents were ushering the folk through the amphitheatre to the hatching ponds beyond.
He could hear the rising hum of conversation and exclamation. This didn’t sound like the usual response to Rasc’s speeches. It was deeper, slower, a collective moan.
Cheekham pushed past the Rana who’d stopped on the path until he could see what had made them halt. Rasc towered above the ponds a stony expression on his face. Around the pond were the bloody remains of a score of warriors, a ravager and two shamans.
What was worse, was inside the ponds. A bubbling red liquid covered the water and had destroyed every egg.
Every egg.
Every.
Egg.
His body trembled. There was a strange sensation inside him; every bone and muscle vibrated as if he were coming apart. The horror of what he saw in front of him spilled out in what started as his voice but became something else. Not a cry, not a scream, but a great roar of rage. Pain filled him, as he absorbed fire from those around him. He threw his head back, raised his arms to the sky and a great blast of lightning flew from his webbed hands.
Cheekham, collapsed on the stones by the pond, his heart pounding, chest heaving. He tried to push himself up and saw the change in his skin. Gone was the glossy smooth green that blended into the marsh lushness, a natural camouflage, now replaced by a hard scaly charcoal.
Others backed away from him murmuring their distress. What had happened to him?
A hand fell on his shoulder. Cheekham looked up at Rasc and knew that his life was changed.
“You see what the humans will do, brother, if left unchecked. This year will have no year-mates. There is a gap in our people like the gap in our hearts.”
Whatever doubts, Cheekham harboured for the cause and his part in it evaporated at that moment. There were some actions that could not be ignored. This time, the humans had gone too far.
Cheekham felt Rasc’s grip and rose, standing taller than the others around him.
“The marsh has chosen you, Cheekham Lightning-Bringer, to defend her.”
This story was written by our writer Kim Tough. Let us know if you like and leave a comment below!