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Hearing his name, the courtier’s crimson head bobbed pertly “Just Beast,” he assured me
The Marsh King raised himself up and ushered me out the door with the air of a host who has just realized he is one guest away from a comfortable nap
“Off you go then, Eyvind, my boy—and ho! now you really are a boy! Splendid We shall see you again, I have no doubt Run along! Fare thee well and all that rot!”
EYVIND’S BODY RELAXED HE HEAVED HIS GREAT hed “And I’ve been alike a bear again, ith the gut and the hair It doesn’t do any good I’ for the sea to turn It never does I stay close to the Marshes, hoping that it’s true that Kings don’t lie I don’t haveThe Marshes aren’t more than a week’s journey north of here The days, they have their ithbeer to brats in this filthy tavern”
The Prince stared at the surface of the bar, the loops and whorls of the wood like a fingerprint “I am sorry for you,” he mumbled
Eyvind’s face purpled “I don’t need your pity, boy That’s a useless load I’ll give you a pair of walking boots with no proood bird when I’ll be getting ”
“The… the Marsh King, you mean?”
“Stars, boy, you’re thick as a cub still sucking at its da A week’s walk north and you’ll be knee-deep in e you rent for that stool you’re ruining” He tossed afor the young Prince onto the bar and disappeared with a final grunt into the back room
Leander took the boots gingerly and slipped out of the tavern, his face burning under the stare of the bedraggled patrons
He set out north as Eyvind had said, and indeed, at length he careen, full of the stink of rotting grass and bone He easily picked up the scent of the Leucrotta itself, which was indeed very like blood, coppery and sharp The Marshes ide and s paths of swarets The water shimmered like necklaces laid over one another, and beneath the water he could see fat eels and the flash of fish
In fact, the Prince found the Marshes very beautiful, but every step sucked at his oversized shoes until the going was so slow that he thought he ht very well be stuck there, save that he knew he must return to the Witch by the new ed hi around his boots and catching the sheath of his sword in its wet pockets At each up-step the ainst his heels at the last second
In the center of the Marsh there was a copse of tah embers burned within He wondered at it for a h of ic, and he quite feared to be further delayed by whatever terror dwelt inside He gave it a wide berth, though ithis breeches to the waist
Just as he passed the copse, a shape co his way
“Do you insultme a visit?”
The shape coalesced into an old man whose beard drooped like the whiskers of catfish and whose hair was a greatmoss His eyes were precisely the shade of reen and brown in turns His hands rapped in river reeds and his cloak was sewn together from fallen leaves and acorn mash