The Place
Mirehollow is a swamp thicket of standing water and low, web-laced branches, a wood that has drowned and decided to stay hunting, and the hunting is the kill. It stretches four kilometers from the black river to the white hills, and the four kilometers is a measure you can trust, because the thicket does not move, even if the water under it does. The water is black and still, a black that is not the color of depth but the color of the mire itself, and the black is the day, and the day is the kill. The branches are low and web-laced, the webs a pale white that is the thicket's only light, and the white is the color of the web, which is to say it is a color you can feel on the face. The ground gives underfoot, a soft dark that does not give back, and the giving is the first installment. The sky above, when the canopy allows it, is a flat grey, the color of the thicket when it is not hunting, and the grey is the only color the mire does not make. It smells of wet rot and standing water, a smell that is the thicket and is also the warning, and the one sound is the web, a soft pull in the branches that is the thicket's only word, and the word is the kill. There is no landmark the way a swamp has a landmark, but there is one: the Kill Tree, a black trunk in the middle of the thicket, the oldest tree and the first kill, and the tree is the door, and the door is the web. What makes Mirehollow itself is the set: the web is set, and the setting is the kill, and the kill is the meal, and the meal is the thicket.
How They Live
The Bugbears keep this place in the set, building their thicket in the swamp, chambers of woven branch and web, lined with hide and bone, their entrances low, and a chamber is set one web at a time, because a web is the season and a web is the calendar. Light comes from the dark, the black of the swamp, which glows faintly in the deep, and the black is the color of the day. Food is the kill: the swamp-kill, the small game, the large game, and the web that keeps the ambush honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is the swamp, and the swamp is the water, and the thicket drinks and hunts and kills in the same black pool, and the pool is the law. Heat comes from the fire, small and kept low, because the fire is a location and the thicket reads locations, and a fire that is not kept low is a fire that is a map. The defense is the web itself: a visitor who steps into the thicket is already in the kill's path, and the kill is the alarm, and the alarm is the welcome, and the welcome is the sentence. The day is measured by the web, because the web is the only clock the mire has, and the clock does not lie about the set. Every bugbear that is born must set one web in the Kill Tree before the thicket will call it one of its own, and the setting is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the web ever gives back.
People
Home of the Bugbears, whose thickets are counted by web. Nine webs are set at last count, and the count is kept in the dark, which is to say the count is as fixed as the mire, which is to say it does not lie. The web-keepers lead, and rank is decided by the setting, because a keeper who can set a web the thicket has never seen is the keeper the dark trusts. Nothing that cannot keep a sound down is welcome, and the sound is not needed, because the thicket has a web, and the web has a kill, and the kill has a ledger. A surface traveler who once crossed the thicket, the last one to find the web forgiving, called it the only swamp where the air makes you hold your breath before you take a step, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the web paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the ambush is the only honest conversation, and the conversation is the kill, and the kill is the meal, and the meal is the end. The Forgotten have not been to Mirehollow, but Uaellaen has read the web once, at a distance, and the web read him back, and the reading was the first thing he has ever paid for that he could not buy back.