A Barrow Beneath the Bog

    Sean lifted his boot out of the sucking mud with a grimace. “Flick, please tell me these kids aren’t already dead.”

    Flick, moving easily across the sod in her fox form, waved her tail back and forth noncommittally. “Could be dead, could be alive, really no telling before we find them. Wisps are nasty buggers, but they can’t hurt you by their lonesome. They usually just lure folks into the mire and let the bog do the rest of the work.” She sniffed at the trail, her muzzle curling up at the smell. “Then again, they might have plenty of tricks I don’t know about. We weren’t exactly neighborly with one another.”

    “How do they lure people then?”

    “Hmmm,” Flick paused, staring further into the bog. “Well they’re clever, see. They can make illusions to fool you into thinking you’re following someone you’re not. They can mimic voices and the like too. Don’t worry though, they might be able to fool the eyes and ears, but not the nose. They still stink like a grave full of charred fat.”

    “Wow, for someone who isn’t an expert, you’re actually pretty knowledgeable.”

    Flick lifted her head, preening. “Aye, tis true lad, I am a mistress of lore and wisdom.” She pointed a paw out towards a patch of tall swamp grass. “That, and I heard one of them giggling to itself over yonder. If you look carefully you can see what appears to be a child, but the stench gives it away.”

    Sean squinted, focusing on the brush. He could just make out the form of a young girl crouched in the grass, although he couldn’t hear anything. The girl shifted slightly, turning towards him before bolting away deeper into the bog.

    He whistled, calling Corvane down from above and onto his arm. They’d worked out the sign beforehand as a way to signal him without alerting any observers to his true nature. Sean had been a little worried his advisor would find it demeaning, but the raven had brushed away his concerns.

    “Corvane, can you follow that girl from above? Flick says it’s one of the wisps.”

    “Certainly, Successor, I’ll stay above her so you can mark me and follow. I’ll return to you if I lose her in the vegetation.”

    Luckily that wasn’t an issue. Sean and Flick used the raven’s location in the sky as a way to follow the wisp at a distance. Whenever they would get close, the girl would dash away again. Eventually, Corvane met them at the entrance to what looked like a sunken tomb.

    “I saw the false child enter, Successor. What’s more, as I followed her, I noticed that there was a strand connecting her to the interior of the tomb. It was faint, a thin line of blue-white fire, but what it means I couldn’t say.”

    “I smell the children down there too – the real ones, I mean. They definitely went into that hole.” Flick added.

    The opening was flush with the earth around it, but camouflaged with years’ worth of greenery. Sean could just make out stairs leading below ground, the individual steps fading into shadow. He could hear the indistinct sound of children singing from within.

    “Allow me to assist you in finding your path, Successor.” Corvane said, gliding into the descent. A soft blue glow emanated from his body, faintly illuminating the way forward.

    “Huh,” Sean grunted. “Flick, can you remind me to add torches to the list of items I need to buy when we make it back to town?”

    “Stop stalling, lad, and get down there.” Flick replied. “It’s time to play the hero.”

    Steeling himself, Sean stepped into the entrance. His boots scraped against the first few steps, loose gravel tumbling into the dark. The sound of the small stones bouncing against the stairway seemed to echo far further than it should, the faint pitter pat of pebbles growing into an avalanche before dying deep in the darkness. Flick padded beside him, her ears twitching with every drip of water, her eyes tracking the vermin scuttling across the stone. Corvane flew just ahead, a pale blur in the gloom, his feathers faintly luminescent against the black.

    “I get that it’s damp in here,” Sean whispered to Flick, “but why hasn’t this place flooded? We’re definitely below the water level outside.”

    “Magic.” Flick answered simply.

    He felt a touch of excitement. “Magic? Does that mean whoever was buried here was important?”

    “No, enchantments like this were common a couple hundred years ago. This one’s old and probably breaking down, or this tomb would be – forgive me the levity – bone dry. Most likely that also means robbers have picked the place clean, so don’t get your hopes up we’ll find treasure down here.”

    “I’ll settle for finding the kids in one piece.” Sean said, but he couldn’t help but feel just a little disappointed.

    Corvane hushed them as a children’s song drifted upward from the depths.

    “To Mother Mag we give our bread, to take our foes and strike them dead.”

    “They’re close,” Sean whispered.

    “Closer than I’d like,” Flick muttered, her voice tight. She sneezed violently, shaking her head. “The air here is positively rank. Can’t smell the wee ones for all the old rot.”

    “Corvane mentioned the wisps look like they’re tied to something inside this tomb.” Sean said, tightening his grip on the haft of his hatchet and taking the lead. “If that’s the case, maybe all we have to do is follow the strings and it will lead us to the kids.”

    “All we have to do,” Flick scoffed, “is avoid dying in a hole full of old bones. The wisps wouldn’t bring us down here if it was safe. I bet there’s a dozen old traps just waiting to take your head off, lad.”

    “Oh yeah? What about your…” Sean’s voice died in his throat when, as if summoned by her words, his next step pressed a slab that gave underfoot with a hollow click.

    He froze.

    “Get down!” Flick yelled, colliding with the back of his knees and toppling him forward. A grinding noise passed over Sean’s prone body from behind, accompanied by a rush of air. From his position on the floor, Sean watched as a nicked bronze blade cut through where his head had been before receding smoothly into the wall. The fox walked over to look him in the eyes.

    “Point proven,” she said. “Watch where you put those clodhoppers of yours.”

    Sean swallowed hard, pushing himself to his feet. His arms trembled, though whether from fear or the adrenaline hammering in his blood he couldn’t tell. He was careful not to trigger the pressure plate again. 

    He didn’t want to think about what that blade would have done to him had he been alone, but he couldn't help it. As he stared at the grooves the blade's movement had revealed in the mossy wall, an image roiled in his mind of his head coming clear from his body in a gout of blood. He had almost died there.

    The thought made him violently ill. He retched up his afternoon's stew, holding the wall for support and panting between heaves. He'd had months to come to terms with his diagnosis in his old life, to make peace with the fact that he was eventually going to die, but this was different. This wouldn't have been a bed death in a clean hospital surrounded by family and friends, it would have been a brutal, violent end in a hole where no one would ever find his corpse. Friendly as she seemed, he didn't really know Flick yet, and Corvane was just as much of an enigma beyond his position as Sean's advisor. Would either of them actually care enough to mourn him?

    The raven’s deep voice echoing from further down the passageway interrupted his downward spiral.

    “The path leads this way, Successor.”