The Swamp Warden by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

stepped on Cara’s feet one too many times, and she’d laughingly refused to dance with him anymore. “Not until you apologize,” she’d said. He’d grinned and refused and tried to catch her in a dance the rest of the night, but she always spun away.
    That had been a week before the last trip into the swamp. Rhyn stopped the memories there. Better to focus on the here and now.
    He stretched and looked up, into the tangle of tree branches thick with moss that hid the sky and cast the swamp into perpetual gloomy darkness. Something hung from a branch, a lattice of twigs strung with eggshells and bundles of herbs. Paint daubed on the shells traced runes that Rhyn couldn’t interpret. He frowned at the fetish and thought briefly of bringing it down for a better look.
    Then the line bobbed sharply. Rhyn wrapped both hands around the fishing pole but didn’t start fighting right away. He fed some line first and let it draw into the water for moment after moment before setting his legs under the bench and hauling on the pole.
    A spray of water exploded twenty feet away. Strips of jagged light from the shuttered lamp slashed across the gator’s belly as it thrashed in the water. Sweat poured from Rhyn’s body and gnats descended on his hands and neck in a rush. The skiff rocked, but Rhyn held his spot, keeping his weight in the center of the bench. Bit by bit he took the line in, bringing the gator and skiff closer together by inches.
    “Don’t break,” he muttered. The line was spider-silk thread from the giant spiders in the Fangwood, spun with catgut and double-waxed for strength. But this gator was big.
    The muscles in Rhyn’s arms stung. A yellow eye glared briefly from the churning water and disappeared under the surface again. The rigid green-black hide, rough as cordwood, surged toward the skiff. The gator’s tail lashed the water, drenching Rhyn in a spray of stinking murk. All at once he let go of the fishing pole and snatched up the club.
    “Aye, there are creatures in the swamp that will hunt a man. And the best protection is to hunt them first.”
    The club was slick with swamp water and Rhyn clenched both fists around it. The gator rammed into the skiff and Rhyn almost slid off the bench as it rocked. The lantern bobbed wildly. A wave of water rolled back as the gator opened its mouth and readied to take a bite out of the side of the skiff. Rhyn brought the club down on the gator’s head, two-handed, with all his strength.
    The beast stilled momentarily, its great mouth open, rows of yellow teeth curving over the gunwale of the boat. Rhyn swung again, slamming the gator’s skull with brutal force. Its eyes went dim and flat.
    While the gator was stunned, Rhyn snatched up the fillet knife and drove it deep into those yellow eyes, first one and then the other.
     
    ∗ ∗ ∗
     
    He sat quietly in the boat for a spell after he killed the gator, breathing deeply and absently swatting at insects. When his heart was back to its proper rhythm, he tied the gator up and let it drag behind the skiff.
    The energy of the battle still hummed around him like an insect cloud. He felt recharged, purposeful, invincible. This was why he’d chosen to stay in Crossfen even after Cara had died. Why he’d taken on the mantle of protector though none of the townsfolk had asked him directly. Because he could, and because they needed him, and because it felt right. He imagined this was what it was like to be the Forest Marshal, a leader and protector.
    When Rhyn pulled the skiff up to the pier, the children were still hanging about. They ran off the minute they saw him, and by the time he’d tied off the boat, climbed out, and dragged the gator’s body onto the boards, a group of townsfolk had clustered. They murmured with fear and admiration as he rolled the gator on its side.
    “Not too big,” Mart said.
    “Not too big,” Rhyn agreed. He fished his knife out from the skiff. “What do you think, seven feet, nose