Chapter 7
The finger had no nail.
The tips, though, were curved and hooked, resembling the claws of a bat.
It gave the water's surface a gentle tap.
Immediately, a low, rumbling echo rose from the depths of the mire.
It wasn't the roar of some wild beast.
It sounded more like an empty barrel tumbling underground.
Bubbles began to rise to the surface.
One after another.
When they popped, a sickly stench of rot and blood burst forth into the air.
The old man's face turned ashen.
"It's awake," he said.
The soldier asked, "Who's awake?"
The old man didn't answer.
Instead, he picked up his axe and hacked through the rope connecting the two rafts.
The priest lunged forward to stop him.
But the old man roared in the island tongue, his voice rising above everyone else's for the first time.
Martin only caught one word.
Calamoor.
Later, he added a Castilian note in the margin.
The Mire's Maw.
The second raft was slowly pulled away by the current.
The three men on it paddled frantically, fighting to break free.
But something beneath the raft held them fast, refusing to let go.
The surface did not churn violently.
No biting.
The raft just kept sinking, little by little.
Like some invisible maw was dragging it down.
Just before it vanished, Martin saw an eye open beneath the water.
It was bigger than a shield.
Golden, shimmering in the depths.
With a vertical black pupil.
It stared coldly through the murky water, locking onto Pedro on their raft.
After that eye appeared, every sound in the mire went silent.
Even the priest's prayers were lost beneath the water's surface, his lips quivering in silence.
The old man crossed his axe over his chest, his eyes locked on the canvas covering Pedro.
Martin wrote that it was the first time he'd ever seen fear on the old man's face.
It wasn't the wary look he'd had when they ran into harpies.
Nor was it the revulsion he'd shown at the sight of Nightbloods.
This was something deeper, a kind of understanding that went far beyond fear.
It was like he'd always known, once that thing beneath the water opened its eyes, it wouldn't close them again until it had something to feed on.
The first raft began to turn slowly.
They weren't the ones paddling.
The current itself was dragging the raft toward the black water.
The surgeon grabbed an oar and dug it into the water, trying to push them away.
But as soon as the oar hit the surface, it was like stabbing into something alive, soft, writhing, and warm.
Something beneath the water coiled and wrenched with sudden force.
The oar snapped clean in two.
The broken end was smeared with a layer of pale, sticky slime.
The old man shouted, "Don't touch the water!"
But one of the sailors had already reached into the mire, trying to fish back the drifting water barrel.
As soon as his hand slipped under the water, his whole body went rigid.
Martin saw a line of tiny white shapes clinging to his wrist beneath the surface.
They weren't fish.
They weren't worms.
They looked like clusters of tiny mouths, just sprouted, crawling up his skin, nipping and chewing as they went.
The sailor screamed and yanked his hand back.
The back of his hand was stripped to the bone, the pale bone gleaming through torn flesh.
The old man hacked off his sleeve with a knife and smeared a handful of black mud over the wound.
The tiny mouths writhed in the mud, making wet, suckling noises like a newborn.
Suddenly, the canvas covering Pedro's body bulged violently.
Whatever was inside seemed to jolt awake at the sound, slamming its heels against the boards beneath.
The ropes started to unravel, one coil after another.
The priest lunged forward, throwing his body over the canvas to hold it down.
The priest sobbed, "Pedro has suffered enough."
The old man roared, "That's not Pedro!"
The priest didn't let go.
Pedro's voice came from inside the canvas.
He said, "Father, I'm cold."
His voice was faint.
It was the kind of voice you'd hear from a man on death's door, begging for someone to save him.
The priest's face crumpled.
He lowered his head, pressing his ear to the gap in the canvas.
Martin tried to pull him back.
But the priest had already heard the person inside speak a second time.
He said, "God is in the water."
The next moment, a pale hand shot out from beneath the canvas, its five hooked fingers gripping the priest's chin.
The priest's prayers turned into broken, choking sobs.
It didn't drag him inside.
Instead, its fingertips slid gently across his throat, drawing a thin line.
Blood trickled onto the edge of the raft.
The massive eye beneath the water shifted forward, closing the distance by half a foot.
The whole mire opened up like a giant maw, sucking them closer.
The old man finally stopped hesitating.
He raised his axe and hacked through the last rope binding Pedro's corpse.
The priest lunged forward, going for his hand with his teeth.
The old man didn't flinch.
The back of the axe slammed into the priest's temple.
As the priest collapsed, the canvas bundle slid toward the edge of the raft.
Pedro suddenly laughed from inside.
The laughter slithered out through the seams, like a swarm of bats gnashing their teeth all at once.
He said, "You've opened the way."
When the canvas dropped into the black water, not even a ripple broke the surface.
The water sank inward, leaving a perfect round hole.
It was as if a mouth had been waiting there all along, ready to devour whatever fell in.
Pedro and the canvas slipped beneath, vanishing together.
A few heartbeats later, a dull, grinding sound rose from the depths.
Martin described it in a way that was oddly unsettling.
He said it wasn't the sound of flesh being torn.
It was more like a millstone grinding bones to dust, then slowly drawing out the marrow, savoring every last drop.
When the priest came to, the wound on his throat had already turned black.
He gazed out over the water, silent now, his prayers had died on his lips.
The old man barked, "Get to the shallows, now!"
At last, the raft started to move.
But the black water behind them wasn't quiet.
A broad, shadowy back slowly rose from beneath the duckweed.
Martin didn't see the whole thing.
All he saw was a row of spines stretching out across the water, like the wall of a drowned fortress.
It was so enormous, its sheer size defied belief.
With every breath it took, the raft was buffeted and shoved aside by the gusts of air, as if the whole swamp itself was exhaling.