Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [103]
The gods themselves must have concocted such a storm. Surely she heard the Wild Hunt out there, the hooves of their monster steeds pounding anything that got in the way as flat as cloth. They were all soaked within moments even with the shelter. All it accomplished was to keep the worst of the rain and wind off.
Before long, the pounding and howling and cold numbed her into a state of unthinking endurance. She couldn’t manage to put a single coherent thought together, and all that mattered was the slightly warmer place where all their bodies met. How long that went on, she could not have even guessed.
Then, at some point, the storm passed. The wind dropped. And although they could not have managed to separate their tangled limbs to attempt a fire, the warmth of their combined bodies finally dried out their cloaks enough that they began to doze.
Gwen woke with the birdsong of false dawn. Trying not to wake the others, she got herself loose to check on the horses. She was too tired to really think clearly, but she would not have been in the least surprised to have found them dead.
The poor things were in a sad state, but they were not dead. The crude head coverings had been blown away, and they had all fought their bonds so hard that they were now in a state of head-hanging exhaustion. She released some of their hobbles, gave them each a couple of handfuls of grain from the saddlebags, which they lipped up dispiritedly, and felt their legs to see if they had damaged themselves.
She could feel that the muscles had been strained, enough that it would be a good idea to give them a couple days of rest, but there were no sprains. With a sigh of disbelief at their luck, she crawled out of the open center of the brush-tangled copse to see what the rest of the world looked like.
And gaped at what she found.
Where there had been a flat valley, there was now a marsh. Not just water; she had expected water. No, this was a marsh, one that looked as if it had been there for generations.
Huge reed beds separated by stretches of open water spread out before her, out to the horizon. Here and there a was a hummock where a few trees and bushes hung on; the reeds and marsh plants in most places were as high or higher than a man’s head. Mist threaded its way along the water, hung in banks in other places. Ten feet in, and you would be lost and disoriented. If fog closed in so you couldn’t see the stars or the sun, you would never even know what direction you were going. It was a place that warned you, just by the look of it, that it would be full of sucking mires and unexpected sinkholes. You’d never find a secure, dry place for more than a couple of men to sleep. You’d never find the wood to make fires, or a place to make them. And that was all aside from the supernatural dangers hiding in those mists. It would be insane to take an army across that.
Of course, King March was insane, and he might try.
He wouldn’t get far, though. The border here was safe from him.
Gwen set about finding deadfall for a fire, then when she had piled up enough at the entrance to their little copse that the others could remake the camp while she was gone, she went hunting for some breakfast.
There was a great advantage to suddenly being on the edge of a marsh. There were fish in it, and they all seemed hungry. She fashioned a fish spear from an arrow, scattered some crumbs over the surface, and set to work. By the time the sun was a thumb’s breadth above the horizon, she had enough to satisfy the most ravenous of appetites. And she had the shrewd idea that she had been “helped” in this, for she thought she had caught a glimpse of amused eyes among the reeds.
She wasn’t going to argue about it. Given the size of this marsh,