Meg cried out and disappeared completely. Toby hauled on the rope until he could grasp her arm and drag her upright, spluttering.
"All right?" Stupid, stupid question! His feet were sinking deeper as he stood there. Rory had turned to see, still strumming vigorously.
Meg shuddered. "Yes! Keep g-g-going!" Her sodden dress had fallen out of its tuck and was clinging to her slender legs.
The journey resumed, curving to the left. Water lapped around Toby's thighs and mud sucked at his feet. He was a beetle wading through cold porridge. Everyone's teeth were chattering now.
Rory's suggestion that Lady Valda had expected Toby to escape was an unwelcome complication that he should have thought of for himself. It was certainly plausible, for surely a hexer as powerful as everyone said she was ought not to have botched a conjuration so badly.
She had not explained her real motives. He had no idea why she had gone to all the trouble of demonizing him. To believe that she wanted him as an incubus would be stupid vanity, and he did not doubt Rory's statement that she could bewitch any man she wanted. Surely love charms did not require daggers and self-mutilation and bowls of blood — those must be gramarye of deeper, darker purpose. Why go to so much trouble over the big Highland lad? She must have been playing for higher stakes than just a prizefighter or a very questionable gigolo.
Tendrils of mist floated over the water like glowing fingers. Here and there they seemed brighter than they should be, and not matched to their reflections in the dark mirrored surface below. He could see three or four lights now, and he wondered how Rory knew which one to follow.
The water was up to his crotch. He glanced back and saw both Meg and Hamish waist-deep and struggling. The cold was making his whole body tremble. The lute sang a wild lament.
Rory had hinted that there might be a hex on Toby, but had he guessed about a demon? Predictably, he was fleeing from the glen, heading for the rebels in the hills. In a sense, he was a loaded gun that could fire at any moment. Who was the intended target? King Fergan?
Without warning, his feet slid from under him and he plunged into icy, inky blackness. He struggled upright, coughing and cursing and spitting. His mouth tasted of swamp and the water hurt in his nose. Now he was wet all over — his hair, his pack. He rescued his bonnet and tucked it in his belt. Cold was driving deep into his body, and he was the largest of all of them. How much of this could little Meg stand?
Two eyes glowed at him. He shied away and almost fell again before he remembered Rory's warning. The wisp was playing tricks. The eyes drifted apart and became just two globes of fire. Then three. A dark shape threatened amid the bulrushes. Giant worms writhed, pallid faces grimaced.
"Go faster!" he shouted. "We're all freezing!"
"Daren't!" Rory shouted, still strumming. "If I fall, we're done for."
Splash, splish… The lute sang discordantly, hitting unexpected pitches, dissonant trills. A face with glowing red eyes and green teeth loomed out of the mist. Toby waved an arm through it, dissolving it into streamers.
Silence. Rory had stopped moving and stopped playing. The water was up to his waist. "This is bad! In case you haven't guessed, we're in deep trouble."
"We're getting deeper just standing here!" Toby snapped. "Play on. Move!"
Their leader was barely visible in the darkness. "I was never this deep last night. The wisp is playing with us!"
Or the wisp was trying to kill them. It didn't like demons in its swamp? Monstrous white shapes moved in the darkness, glowing with more than moonlight. The very silence was menacing.
"We haven't much t-t-time, sir," Hamish wailed.
"Which light do you fancy? That one? Or that one? Let's try the green one, shall we?" Rory shrugged and began playing again, picking his way forward through the cruel, cold water.
The mud sucked harder. Their progress had slowed to a snail's crawl. Every step was a struggle to pull up a foot, balance in the sludge on the other leg, move the foot forward without tipping over, find bottom again… Toby could not feel his toes at all, which did not help.
Meg submerged with hardly a splash, but he felt the tug. He hauled in the line, dragging her to him. He scooped her up in his arms. She and her pack together weighed more than he expected, but she was a frozen, trembling waif. She coughed and gasped and clung to him. Now he could no longer keep a grip on the line to Rory. He sank deeper with every step. The muddy bottom sucked at his knees. Hamish's head went under and then reappeared, gasping that it was all right.
The music twanged painfully and stopped. Rory had gone. Toby almost overbalanced as the rope yanked him forward.
Then Rory came up right in front of him, his face plastered with mud and wet hair. "That's it!" he said hoarsely, between coughs. "I've lost the lute. The wisp won't cooperate without music. Sorry, children, but there's going to be four more ghoulies playing in the fog."
The glittering marsh monsters drifted closer. Every direction looked the same, the stars were hidden, and the cold was eating into bones. No sound except chattering teeth and thumping heart…
Demon! I'm dying!
Dum… Dum… Faint and muffled by the reeds, lost in the water sounds whenever anyone moved… It might be only his own normal heartbeat, but he thought it was coming from outside him, from over there, and in that case it must be a signal.
"Well, we can go faster without that damnable lute!" he said. "Follow me. Swim, or float on your backs. I'll tow you." Demon? Which way? Taking the lines over his shoulders, he plunged forward without waiting for argument.
He turned to the sound of the beat, clawing through sedge and bulrushes. No occult lavender glow came to lighten his path. The wisp's mocking beacons twinkled in red and green and blue, but he could barely see anything for the vegetation splattering water in his eyes. He felt no surge of demonic strength — this was Toby Strangerson fighting this battle, fighting for his life. Every few minutes he would pause and listen, locating that elusive thump, but to stop moving was to freeze, to sink deeper. Weeds clutched at his legs; the combined burden of Meg and his broadsword was driving him down. Rory and Hamish struggled along behind him, half wading, half floating, offering little resistance except when he had to pull them through tangles of sedge.
Dum… Dum… Why so faint? Why no demonic power? Was the bogy keeping the demon at bay? Were the two spirits locked in battle? Or was he imagining some foolish echo of his heart, struggling around in circles in the dark? Glowing faces bared fangs at him. His blood coursed and his lungs were bursting, but at least he must be warmer than the others. Would he arrive at the shore towing three corpses?
Ah! The ground was firmer and the water was down to his waist. The mist brightened overhead, taking on a sheen of moonlight.
"Almost there!" he yelled, and lost his footing as he trod on a painfully sharp stick. He went down in a bed of knives, it seemed, swallowed half the swamp, and struggled to his feet, helping Meg up. As he wiped the water from his eyes he saw the guards, a crowd of skeletal shapes looming out of the haze, arms spread to bar mortal intruders.
Rory was upright, teeth chattering wildly. "I know this part, it's a drowned forest. It's near the west shore, but we'll never get through it. Which way round? Left or right?"
Toby listened. Silence?
Rory cupped his hands and bellowed into the darkness: "Jeral? Cruachan!"