his language skills probably weren’t up for the task. Clegg had told him that the congruence point hadn’t been used in a long time, but that could mean almost anything when talking to a troll whose age was measured in thousands of years.
All Will knew for sure was that it should take them to the southern marshes in Darrow. The southern marsh was formed by the delta where the River Myrs, which flowed from the central hills of Darrow, let out into the Central Sea. Depending on exactly where the congruence point opened, they would probably have a day’s travel north to reach the capital itself.
A day by horse, Will corrected himself mentally. Given the incredible stamina of the trolls, it was possible that their ordinary travelling pace would get them there faster. They just had to follow the river upstream until they found the river road, and it should be an easy trip from there.
He would be eternally grateful to get out of Muskeglun. The endless swamp had begun to erode his morale, in part because the lack of ambient turyn was exhausting, but also because of the persistent heat. And the mosquitos, Will observed, who could forget the goddamn mosquitos?
Will had never brought a group of people through a congruence point before, much less a group of trolls, so he decided to experiment a little. He took Gan across first, then went back for Lrmeg and one of the others. He put his hand on Lrmeg but just had the other troll stand close by. Only Lrmeg crossed with him, so on his next crossing he had the ten remaining trolls hold hands in a circle, with Will forming one of the links.
Trying to get ten nightmarish trolls to hold hands like schoolchildren threatened to give Will a bad case of the giggles. His language skills were barely up to the task, and the trolls obviously thought his request was strange, but after a series of odd looks, they complied. This time, all the trolls crossed over.
That answers one question, Will noted. Physical contact is required to bring someone else across. Even as he thought that, however, he found himself breathing deeply in a purely emotional response to the clear, fresh air of Hercynia. A week in the fetid stench of Muskeglun had nearly been too much for him.
The influx of ambient turyn was also a great relief. During his most recent time in the troll plane, he had discovered that he no longer needed to refresh himself with elixir of turyn nearly as often as he had the previous time—apparently his body’s efficiency at surviving on very little turyn had improved—but even so, he had burned through most of the stockpile of turyn elixirs he had saved up during the previous year. He’d had to drink one roughly every three hours to remain functional.
The southern marsh in Darrow was somewhat similar to Muskeglun, but it felt much better to him. The air was cleaner, the turyn much thicker, and the mosquitos less of a problem. The mosquito improvement was mainly because he no longer had to conserve his magic, so a pest-repelling spell was the first thing Will did after arriving.
Although he’d thought that choosing their direction of travel would be simple, it turned out that the water in the marsh didn’t move enough for him to figure out which way the sea or the river lay. If it had been a cloudy day that might have been a problem, but since he could see the sun and knew the time of day, he was able to figure out which way was northwest.
They traveled the rest of the day, not stopping until night fell. Though trolls didn’t tire easily, they did need sleep, as well as food. The latter was something Will worried about, for his allies’ prodigious physical strength and stamina was sustained by an equally prodigious appetite. In Muskeglun they satisfied their hunger by hunting the vast and prolific fauna that seemed to be everywhere, but they had eaten everything they carried with them two days ago.
They’d eaten every bit of the stored food Will kept in the limnthal the next day. Today they’d gone hungry and, in the morning, they would need to hunt. Lrmeg had been unbending in his description of how important it was that they eat, and Arrogan had reinforced the opinion when Will had asked him about it later.
“It’s the same with people,” said Arrogan. “You’re just a few meals