Lord Remy Van Calcar (or the Lord of Pascor) had three sons

The firstborn they found bound in bloody leather thongs

Deep in them reeds where the air cries in squishes.

Old-Hag singing amidst the Wolf-fishes

Thou should fear the lake witch’s wishes

-

Between the rivers, the islands and nearby closed sea

Here is another deep, far beyond the scalding sea, be waiting

All them riches raining unto thee, just avoid the tall willow tree

For over yonder, nobody will hear yer pleas, or dread’s swishes

Old-Hag singing amidst the Wolf-fishes

Thou should fear the lake witch’s wishes

Both differing versions of the ancient ‘Fenlands Song’

-Its first turns and verses

Unknown circa (various dates)

-

Lord Ton Van Calcar

‘The Wolf-fish’

The gathering storm

Part III

-The Hag took him-

The morning bell rang.

The sound coming distorted out of the mist surrounding the isles, the air heavy and very humid. It reeked of rotten mud and dead fish.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Aafke gasped in his back and Ton turned away from the open window facing the Hag’s Fenlands. The Calcar Tower’s walls darkened from soaking in the mud year in and year out. The summer sun caked the ground and if you cleaned it proper, which they did else the bugs spilled into the city, you could walk over the treacherous terrain all the way to Wolf-fish without using a boat.

Of course the last part of this land-bridge was more watery mud, quicksand-like and there was a good chance you would get eaten alive afore reaching the town, so most avoided taking the chance. Boat-owning was a premium market near the big lake.

“The air stinks. Allgods it’s like something died in my mouth!” Aafke complained, her pregnancy coming with some perks, like bigger tits and more meat on her bones, but also with problems. Her not enjoying Pascor’s air being the least of them.

“Something did,” Ton rustled and turned around leaving the window open. “We lost two fishermen yesterday.”

Aafke’s dainty green eyes stared at him mockingly. “Asphyxiation?”

“They were eaten,” he told her finding his goblet. It was made out of clay and he’d the taste of fish in his throat. Catfish and Carp fillet. Plenty of both in Pascor. Clay too. One could find good game in the forest, but fishing was more practical.

“Wolffish?” Aafke asked playing with her breasts on the bed.

Or checking up on them.

“What?” He grunted.

“Were they eaten by fish?” Aafke asked and Lord Van Calcar thought of the remains Captain Kevin Assen had brought with him in the bag.

“No, they weren’t,” he replied and sipped at the sour wine. Canlita Sea was a saltwater lake, but every season fresh water was pouring in it, weaning the sea part out according to the scholars but left the brackish aftertaste on everything else.

“How do you know?”

“Fish don’t leave fleshy parts behind. They are not fastidious like that,” Ton replied with a grimace. But the mist had brought the Hag out again and she was. “Your family is trying to fuck me up girl,” he rustled changing the subject.

Aafke blinked and stopped touching herself. “Well you did that aplenty, so yeah…”

“You were pretty willing,” Ton grunted.

“I was kidnapped!”

“Bullshit! Don’t play coy with me lass,” he snapped and tossed the cup out of the window frustrated. “Janos married that young cunt Lauke Hoff. Sent a fucking army in Tollor to celebrate the plaguing event!”

“You’re frustrated,” Aafke said getting up. Ton liked her small swollen belly. It was a recent development and it had taken him by surprise. Him liking her in this state. Sir Blenk had immediately suggested they toss the girl in the lake upon finding out and avoid the trouble, but Ton had Aafke move to his quarters permanently instead. “I can see it bothers you. Young Lauke is not that pretty.”

Huh?

“Witch’s tits! What in all-hells are you talking about? I rather cut my cock off than bed a fucking crab!” Ton exploded irate. “Hoff having them soldiers stay for the summer is what bothers me! Them cucks having friendly discussions and looking my fucking way is what keeps me awake,” he finished breathing heavy.

“Haha,” Aafke chuckled and Ton grunted, sweat on his forehead despite the chilly morning. “Let me see that cock,” she hummed that naughty look in her eyes again, the rest of his words flying over her pretty head.

“Listen to me,” Ton hissed putting an arm out to stop her approach. “Hoff is going to try coming east up the road. He’ll bring Janos lads with him using the ‘get Aafke back’ card. By the time Lord Anker gets wind of what’s going on they’ll be across the river. Antoon fucked us. Bloody idiot climbing down the stairs with his head. Stupid cretin!”

“Screw Janos,” Aafke told him. “Old as fuck, you can take him.”

Are you god darn serious?

“Huh? Ain’t gonna arm wrestle that ancient bastard,” Ton grunted in bewilderment. “But that other old prick Lord Albert gave him enough men to toss our arses in the lake. I want you to grasp the severity of our situation here.”

“I’m your wife, he can’t do anything about it,” Aafke retorted stubbornly with a glare. “You won’t let him. Right?”

Eh, witch’s tits on her, Ton thought and stood back feeling defeated.

“This will cost me,” he murmured. Truth was the Lord of Pascor was already working on a remedy of sorts for quite a while now.

“Didn’t you say,” Aafke said softly, touching his arm. “You can handle Lord Hoff?”

“I didn’t expect Janos to befriend him,” he admitted with a sigh. “Badum hates Tollor.”

“That’s true,” Aafke agreed with a teasing grin. “We hate Pascor as well.”

Ton frowned not expecting it. “You do? Why?”

“I was trying to make a jest because you’re so gloomy,” his young ‘wife’ said with a cute pout. “But now that I thought about it again… goddess the air here is right foul! I’m going to puke out of your window my Lord,” she added all serious.

“Go ahead,” Ton retorted in the same vein. “Just make sure to keep your head out fully and grab at them rails. It’s a big fuckin’ drop.”

“I have Emil guarding the pits,” Sir Blenk reported later that day. “Carus keeping an eye on the road beyond Serene River.”

“Are they still camped at Hoff’s Tower?” Ton asked him watching the ships unloading at the busy docks.

“They are, but they have army parked at Crabville as well. They have well over two to one advantage.”

“You think he’ll try a landing?” a nervous Ton queried.

“Not without taking the bridge,” Blenk replied thoughtfully. “Then again I don’t trust them to play it by the book. They’ll try to trick us.”

“Not if we trick them first,” Ton grunted grinding his teeth. “The Fenlands will dry up soon. I don’t see them landing there so they’ll have to come around the Isles.”

“They would probably.”

“We can catch them in the water then,” Ton murmured.

“They know that, so they’ll probably make as wide a circle around them as possible,” the old Shield noted, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic on the idea. Whether on Tollor sneaking around the isles to their rear, or their own ability to stop them.

Sir Blenk was notoriously difficult to read.

“I should pull Dolf out of Bisonville,” Ton hissed, face contorting in a tensed grimace.

“What of Lord Holt?” Blenk queried calmly.

“Fuck!” Ton cursed, much less calm. “Why is everyone so slow to act?” He puffed out, the stench of the docks making his eyes burn. “King Jeremy should’ve attacked him by now. What in all cheap yet sick harlots is he waiting for?”

“I’m more worried about the legion than the old general,” said Blenk, himself not much younger than Lord Holt.

Ah, they did have a bloody legion camped near Brownfort.

A smaller legion, but a legion none the-fucking’ less.

“They haven’t answered yet?” Ton growled, his mood worsening.

“Not a word,” Blenk retorted with a grimace that cracked his dark wrinkled skin even more.

“Are they going to just live in my lands is that it?” Ton griped looking about him frustrated and a young herald approached with a missive in his hand.

“They are waiting for orders,” Blenk replied to his previous query after reading it and gave him the scroll. “It’s from your brother. You’ll want to read this.”

Damnit.

That sounds as ominous as a boil between the nuts!

“Not good news?” Lord Van Calcar asked and grabbed the scroll to read it quickly. “Well that’s just bloody great,” he griped half way through. “What is this shite?” he added finishing it frustrated.

“Ayup,” Blenk agreed keeping it short. “More legionnaires.”

“Is this a god darn ruse? Are they going to invade? Fucking sneaky Lucius. I thought we helped that fake-civil rebellious cretin!” Ton exploded and glared at his aide Hans Rupert that had made the trip to Kas the previous year. “Didn’t you talk to him?”

“Lord Darvot did the talking milord,” Rupert replied.

“Was he drunk? Didn’t he assure me Lucius was accommodating?”

“He was,” his aide retorted stiffly.

“You think my cousin made a deal with the Lord of Snow? Come clean you parsimonious cunt! Has Darvot sold us out?” Ton grunted, only half-joking.

“Lady Tineke wouldn’t let him even consider it. No, I don’t think so,” Blenk replied to defuse the situation. “Lucius is in Anorum.”

“Right. I fail to see how that helps us? Where is he getting the men? This I’d like to know.”

“Sir Dolf can delay, but not stop their advance,” the veteran Shield added.

The bad news spilling out like dead-eyed fish out of a rotted bucket.

“We are besieged from all sides. Cock in mouth, another plunging for our arses,” Ton grunted and started pacing up and down anxiously. The docks slowly emptying as the crowd and produce was moving back to Pascor and its market. “What are we to do Sir Blenk?”

“We let them come into the mud milord,” he replied evenly and Ton nodded stopping to eye the nearby mist-covered Fenlands.

Get out of their way, Ton thought his mind clearing. Hoff is a determined cretin, but half his army has a monumental hard on for Lucius. Put them nasty cats in the same bag. Swim sneakily into the undergrowth, then hold your breath long enough for angry shit to burst out. Mostly in pieces you can pick apart easily.

Or you’ll suffocate in the attempt.

Eh.

“Send for a scribe,” he rustled and eyed the herald like a bug. “You come with me.”

Later that evening Lord Van Calcar after writing to his brother and Baron Darvot in Brownfort, followed Captain Assen into the slowly drying up bogs. The cobblestone road lost under thin mud and herbaceous flora. Tall grass, rushes and reeds, but also gatherings of huge willow trees and solitary mangroves, appearing like silent giants through the ever present mist.

The ground treacherous with wide flat and hardened elevations that turned into many small islands in the winter, but equally wide unsteady mires that could swallow a foot, or a horse if you didn’t know your way.

The locals did and used flat-bottomed boats to navigate the terrain, but even so accidents happened.

“There,” Assen said pointing at the rise. The lights of men still working amidst the trees visible in the night fog. “Pretty close to the land bridge.”

“Move,” Ton grunted, always nervous coming into the bogs at night. But there was only so many hours in a day. “Mind the give in the leading rope.”

The boatman nodded, his head wrapped in a thin cloth like Lord Van Calcar himself. He used a long oar to push the elongated boat forward and follow the unseen path towards the island, the sounds coming from the awakened Fenlands all about them maddening.

“Anyone else gone missing?” He asked the pensive looking Captain Assen.

“Lady Thea came by earlier,” the hardened sailor grunted. She was the Lord of Pascor’s first cousin and wife of Sir Blenk. The marriage hadn’t produce an offspring unfortunately and the woman had slowly lost her mind in her later years. Blenk had adopted Emil at some point solving his problem, but Thea hadn't come around to the young man. “She headed into the mist sire.”

“Eh, let’s not worry about her,” Ton retorted coldly. He had enough with her craziness and no stomach to indulge her like he did in the past. “She’ll be fine.”

“The men are whispering milord.”

“Thea is not a cannibal Assen,” Ton grunted in frustration, eyeing the lights growing bigger as they approached the island. “She’s a sad woman with not a lick of magic in her.”

“She saved the miller’s daughter kid,” Assen reminded him.

“That was fever,” Ton snapped. “She made a potion, stop being so god darn superstitious!” He added grabbing at the boat to avoid toppling over, the bugs buzzing over their heads, the Fenlands screeching like a thousand harpies were circling them and himself being the most superstitious of them all.

His mind playing tricks on him, as he’d heard that song again amidst the cacophony that made his bones vibrate. The membranes of his brain pulsating and for a moment Ton was a small kid again exploring the marshes with Johan. His bigger brother.

Lord Remy Van Calcar had three sons, the song went.

The firstborn they found bound in bloody leather thongs.

Deep in them reeds where the air cries in squishes.

A newer song, but nothing but a blend in reality of the same tune and much older saying. The refrain Old as the Fenlands themselves. Sang by the Blood Raiders when they reached Serene River.

Between the rivers, the islands and nearby closed sea, that older and original song went.

‘Johan?’ Ton had asked the ever moving reeds, mud reaching his thin knees.

Eh, witch’s swollen tits! He cursed with a shiver pushing the disturbing memories away.

Ton jumped ashore, boots sinking in the soft ground, the lights coming and going. The air thick, drenching his face and garbs. Assen brought his own torch along to illuminate their way coming after him, the flames fighting the thickening fog and dancing shades amidst the trees.

“Do you see them?” Ton asked, heart lodged in his throat, trying to fight the memories from spilling out. “Fuck’s sake.”

“Over there milord,” Assen said, his voice cracking. “That’s where we found them.”

Ton walked briskly, glancing nervously right and left, until finally they saw the men scouring the woods for the lost boy. Two fishermen had gone missing, then found half-eaten a couple of days later, but no one had found the young apprentice escorting them to learn the ropes.

“No boat comes up here,” Ton croaked, back of hand on his mouth. “We’re twenty meters from the plaguing water Assen.”

“They walked milord,” the captain replied. “Left the boat behind. That’s how we located them. Have no idea why.”

Dammit.

Ton turned about nervously, eyes trying to pierce the foggy darkness and failing. The huge tree trunks looming around them ominously. He breathed out, throat burning from the foul air and realized the Fenlands had turned quiet all of a sudden.

The torches light penetrating the thinning mist as if the latter was retracting.

The Lord of Pascor could hear the rustle of the soaked branches over their heads, the breeze touching the nearby reeds, stems moving slowly reacting to it and even the sound of the torches crackling.

Humming.

Coming from deeper in the small woods.

“What’s that?” a searcher queried sounding spooked.

The mist dissolving, but the shadows remaining. The moonlight pushing some of them back, sneaking through the copse’s canopy to offer assistance to their struggling torches. Some shades darting away, others retreating and one standing unnaturally still, not ten meters from their torches. The light skirting around the reedy alien figure. Long arms and fingers sprouting out of tattered dark robes, the left one holding a long staff with a crooked end. Mess of hair billowing in the night breeze and eyes glowing alike hot coals.

‘You’ll take this carcass’s place,’ the otherworldly voice had told a very young Ton almost twenty years back pointing a bony finger at his dead brother. The accent alien and terrifying in its strange allure. ‘Deliver the warrior king in my embrace. Help me kill the Lord of Lies.’

The figure raised her hand, three fingers extended in a forgotten greeting. Then the old Hag started humming again and the mist returned.

“Get back on the boats!” Ton growled, cold terror grabbing his innards and pulling them out. “NOW GODS DARNIT!”

He was reduced into a young boy in an instant.

Run.

“Get back!” he bellowed fully panicked.

Himself the first dashing out of the woods. Fuck it, he thought afore cursing himself for his weakness.

Sorry lad, but that’s as much as we could do.

Allgods have mercy on yer soul.

“Start rowing,” he ordered the waiting boatman, breathing heavy and glanced back to see most of the men rushing their way.

“What about the search milord?” The Issir asked and Ton stared at him intently, eyes gawking and sporting a manic grimace on his strained face.

“He’s gone,” the Lord of Pascor croaked, just as the rest of the men arrived to the boats, the Fenlands screeching all around them. Everything alive again. “The Hag took him,” he added and that was enough of an incentive to get everyone going.