The cursed towers 265
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four by four. All were grateful for their long, gray cloaks. Not only was the air damp and chilly, but the
magically woven cloaks offered more concealment here than they had in the green, sunlit fields of
Blessem. With the fog pressing close about them, each man was only able to see the men a few paces
ahead, the others simply merging in with the winter-gray landscape.
They had walked for several hours when Gwilym suddenly paused, listening and smelling the air. Iain
stopped abruptly too, his knuckles on his sword-hilt clenching white.
"Can ye smell them?" Gwilym asked rather hoarsely.
Iain nodded. "I hope my sense o' smell d-d-deceives me, though," he whispered back. "It's m-m-much
too early for the nymphs to have shed their w-w-winter husk. Unless . . ."
"Could your mother have somehow hastened the last instar?"
Iain shrugged. "If she rigged up some kind o' incubator, I suppose it is possible. All they need is the
coming o' warmth."
Iseult stared around apprehensively. The mist smelt dank and heavy, like a freshly dug grave. She said
softly, "Mesmerdean?"
"I'm afraid so," Iain replied grimly. "Let us do what we can to see." He closed his eyes and concentrated,
his hands gripped into fists. Slowly the mist swirled away. The sky above emerged a pale blue, the
bushes and trees all about gray and colorless in its thin warmth. Before them lay an open stretch of
evil-smelling swamp. Floating in the mud were hundreds of pale, bulbous eyes, staring unblinkingly.
Those nearest the edge of the swamp had reached out long, skinny, mud-smeared hands. One was only
a few scant inches away from the toe of Iseult's boot and she stepped back with an involuntary cry.
"Mudsprites," Gwilym said gloomily, then added even more glumly, "and Mesmerdean, Ea curse them."
Floating above the swamp were hundreds of the tall marsh-faeries, their veined, translucent wings
whirring, their great clusters of eyes fixed with implacable intent on the little group of soldiers and witches
that had just emerged from the undergrowth. The only sound was the slight humming their wings made,
and their very silence was far more intimidating than the usual loud bravado projected by an opposing
army.
"Another few steps and we would've been in the swamp!" Dide exclaimed, his face white.
Iseult retreated a few more steps as the bony, muddy hand crept further out of the bog. "Look, there are
men there too, and witches," she cried, her uncannily acute eyesight penetrating the gloom at the far side
of the swamp. "They lie in wait for us. This is no' the place for us to fight a battle, Iain. We'll be all
drowned by those blaygird sprites o' yours before we even reach your mother's army. Is there a better
spot for us to retreat to? Firm ground, away from those creepy things?"
Iain opened his mouth to answer, but the tense silence was shattered by the blast of a war-horn. It
seemed the creatures of the marsh had only been waiting for the signal. Immediately they surged forward
and the battle was begun.
Iseult, the witches and the Yeomen of the Guard took the brunt of the attack, most of their soldiers still
back on the path. With swamp before them and thick, boggy undergrowth behind them, the Yeomen had
nowhere to go. So they stood their ground and fought like madmen, hacking off the hands and heads of
the mudsprites that sought to drag them into the swamp, and seeking to impale the Mesmerdean that
darted past like huge, evil-eyed dragonflies. As fast as the marsh-faeries fell, more rose to replace them
