Chapter 14: Rivers of Blood and Ruin¶
The rain came in sheets so fine it might have been mist, had it not possessed the particular malice of working its way beneath cloaks and into the seams of armor. It was the sort of morning that made civilized folk stay indoors—which, Perry Marlowe reflected, was precisely why they found themselves standing on a muddy ledge overlooking the Skunk River ford at eleven o'clock, watching serpentine shapes slide through murky water below.
The ford itself was unremarkable enough: stepping stones leading to a sandy islet in the middle of the current, a five-foot drop from their vantage to the beach below. What made it interesting—and by "interesting," Perry meant "requiring immediate tactical assessment"—was the creature that had slipped beneath the surface the moment it spotted them.
"How deep does the water look?" Elroy asked, peering down at the current.
"Variable. Less than five feet near the shore, closer to ten where it darkens." Infirnis, Perry's custom hand crossbow was already in his grip, though he hadn't raised it yet. His eyes tracked patterns in the murk—the way certain shadows moved against the current rather than with it. "Three of them. Concealed below the waterline."
Elroy followed his gaze. After a moment, he nodded. "Dragon-kin of some variety. Tatzlwyrms, if I recall the old bestiaries correctly."
"Grotdor?" Perry didn't look away from the water.
The fire kineticist had been studying the creatures with unexpected intensity. "Eighteen for their defenses. Their reflexes are terrible—worst by a considerable margin. And if they're dragon-blooded, they'll have some manner of breath weapon." He smiled, flames dancing briefly in his eyes. "Good thing we're not planning to let them breathe."
"We have a bounty for these," Perry added. "Oleg wanted heads."
Rust's ears perked up at that. The goblin oracle had been hanging back, one hand resting on Dog's scruff. "Then I suppose we'd better collect them. Question is—do we go to them, or make them come to us?"
The debate was brief. Elroy climbed down to the beach alone, shield raised, making himself the obvious target. It was the sort of selfless tactical decision that would have gotten most men killed. On Elroy, it simply looked like another day's work.
The first tatzlwyrm surged from the water with speed that belied its bulk—seven feet of gray-green-brown scales propelled by stub legs and raw predatory instinct. Before Elroy could set his stance, the creature had coiled around his legs and torso, constricting with crushing force. Then it exhaled.
The poison cloud engulfed Elroy's face in a haze of noxious vapor. His constitution—forged through years of holding shield walls and absorbing blows meant for lesser warriors—held against the worst of it, but the guardian's complexion took on an unhealthy pallor.
From the clifftop, Dravyn extended his hand toward Elroy's blade. Arcane runes traced themselves along the cold iron longsword's length, transforming it into something far more dangerous. Perry appreciated efficiency in magic; the wizard understood that preparation made the difference between victory and disaster.
The second tatzlwyrm dove deep, vanishing into the murk. The third came at Dravyn himself, stubby legs carrying it across the sand in a flanking rush. Its jaws snapped at empty air as the wizard sidestepped with the precision of a man who'd calculated exactly how far he needed to move.
Rust's voice cut through the chaos—not shouting orders, but speaking words that had been old when the first goblins learned to pray. Cold iron needles materialized from the scrap metal in his pouch and flew in a tight cluster, finding gaps in the first tatzlwyrm's scales. Blood welled from a dozen small punctures.
Elroy fought to break the serpent's grip, failed, rallied his strength, and wrenched himself free through sheer determination. His follow-up strike went wide—the sickness clouding his judgment—but he raised his shield and brought it crashing against his armor in challenge. The creature's attention locked onto him completely.
Fire bloomed around Grotdor as he activated his inner furnace and closed with the tatzlwyrm threatening Dravyn. The flames that leapt from his palm weren't the wild conflagration of an uncontrolled burn—they were precise, surgical, striking exactly where scales overlapped and flesh was vulnerable. The creature screamed as persistent fire continued eating at its hide.
The second exchange came faster.
Perry's assessment of the wounded, burning tatzlwyrm proved perfect—he saw exactly where to place a bolt for maximum effect. The quarrel punched through weakened scales at the base of the creature's skull. Not a killing blow, but the kind of wound that made continuing to fight a matter of diminishing returns.
Dravyn's glaive scraped harmlessly across the creature's hide, but the wizard adapted instantly. He called lightning from somewhere beyond the gray sky—a crackling tendril that struck the fire-wreathed tatzlwyrm with devastating force. Already weakened by Grotdor's flames and Perry's precision, the creature's reflexes failed it entirely. It collapsed in a smoking heap, twitching once before going still.
The hidden tatzlwyrm emerged behind Elroy, attempting the same flanking tactic that had failed against Dravyn. Heavy ankle guards turned aside snapping jaws. Frustrated, it exhaled another cloud of poison vapor—but this time Elroy held his breath, and the noxious fumes washed over him without effect.
Dog bounded into the fray on Rust's command. The wolf's fangs found no purchase, but Rust's needle darts did—another cluster of cold iron piercing the original tatzlwyrm's hide.
Elroy struck. His enchanted longsword, still gleaming with Dravyn's runes, found its mark with devastating precision. Steel carved through scales and muscle alike, and the creature that had wrapped itself around him moments ago dropped lifelessly to the sand. He spun immediately, slashing at the final tatzlwyrm, but his shield arm was already rising in challenge.
Grotdor's fire came like judgment. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of the last tatzlwyrm but a scorched outline on the sand.
"That was efficient," Perry observed, already moving to collect the heads.
The tatzlwyrm nest yielded more than bounty money.
Human bones jutted from shallow water among the rocks—the remains of some unfortunate explorer whose luck had run out at this ford. Perry catalogued the findings with methodical precision: a longsword with the telltale shimmer of enhancement, twenty-three gold pieces, a jade carving of an elven woman, and—most intriguingly—a watertight tube containing a map.
The map showed territories beyond their current charter. Two locations had been marked with crude drawings: a ferocious bear in a hex to the northeast, and a humanoid figure with the head of an elk or stag.
Perry recognized the second image immediately. His hand moved to the charm at his throat—the symbol of Erastil that he'd worn since childhood, a connection to faith inherited from his mother's people.
"A shrine," he said quietly. "To the god of the hunt. Guarded by a dangerous bear, apparently."
"It's outside our territory," Elroy noted. Then, after a moment's consideration: "But not by much."
"Last time we strayed from our charter, we nearly died to that hydra," Dravyn pointed out.
"This is different." Perry was still studying the map. "This is... potentially important. To our kingdom, if we're to have one."
The debate was brief. They would investigate.
The journey westward brought them through the Narlmarches, where the Greenbelt's open plains gave way to wet, boggy terrain that seemed designed specifically to punish travelers. The ground squelched underfoot, soft and damp and altogether miserable.
They found the pond by accident—or rather, the pond found them.
Rust's detection revealed magic emanating from something beneath the murky surface. When Elroy approached to investigate, the water erupted.
The hydra rose twenty feet into the air, five viper-like heads hissing in terrible concert. It was the sort of creature that made seasoned adventurers reconsider their career choices—and for good reason.
Rust took one look at the towering nightmare and made the only sensible decision. "I don't feel comfortable with this thing," he muttered, already backing away. Dog needed no encouragement to follow.
Elroy stood his ground. Not from foolish bravery, but from the cold calculation that someone had to hold the line while the others escaped. He raised his shield and prepared to delay as long as possible.
The hydra closed the distance with terrifying speed. Five heads working in terrible unison, it unleashed a focused assault on the only target within reach. The impact was catastrophic—only Elroy's shield block kept him conscious, absorbing what damage it could before shattering entirely. When the assault ended, the guardian had perhaps a handful of heartbeats worth of life remaining, but he was still standing.
Perry ran. He felt the hydra's reach catch him as he fled, jaws tearing into his side, but he made it to relative safety. Grotdor followed. Dravyn tried the same escape, but the hydra's multiple heads granted it multiple opportunities to strike. The wizard barely survived the critical blow that landed.
The retreat was neither glorious nor dignified. They simply ran, faster than the water-bound predator could pursue, and counted themselves fortunate to be alive.
"That hex," Perry said later, as Rust's healing magic knit their wounds, "can wait until we're considerably more prepared."
No one argued.
The ruined settlement appeared as twilight crept across the marshland—crumbling stone buildings overgrown with moss, a makeshift scarecrow standing sentinel near a weathered bell.
When Elroy approached cautiously, a small figure rushed out waving webbed hands.
"Troce, troce, troce!"
The boggard was perhaps three feet tall, with bulbous eyes and mottled green skin. He spoke no Common beyond scattered words—but lit up immediately when Rust addressed him in Goblin.
"Of course I speak Goblin! Finally, someone who can speak the queen's English!"
His name was Garuum, and his tale was equal parts tragic and absurd.
He had been exiled from M'botuu, a boggard settlement far to the west, for the crime of eating sacred blue dragonflies to gain power and then attempting a coup by riding his giant frog into the village center. Captured, sentenced to death, he had escaped only because his guards got too drunk to remember he existed.
Now he lived in these ruins, building what he called his "new kingdom"—and spoke with absolute certainty about his destiny to become a frog god with worshippers and a harem and all the bugs he could eat.
Perry assessed the megalomaniacal amphibian carefully. The truth was simpler than it appeared: Garuum was harmless. All boggards were somewhat eccentric, and this one posed no genuine threat to anyone or anything—except perhaps the local insect population.
More valuable was his knowledge.
"The biggins with the elk head!" Garuum pointed westward with obvious excitement. "Yes, yes, yes! There is a mystical place—animals are peaceful around it, good hunting for bugs and snakes. But inside there is a fearsome guardian. A ferocious bear who will attack anyone on sight. It smelled unnatural. Magic, even. Very dangerous." He paused, considering. "The water there was foul. Possibly poisonous. Something had corrupted the shrine."
They made camp at Garuum's ruins in exchange for alcohol—tribute befitting a self-proclaimed king-in-waiting. The boggard drank steadily through the evening, regaling them with boasts of his future godhood, until he eventually passed out in a wet heap of leaves.
When morning came, humid and sunny, they left their host snoring among the ruins and traveled northeast toward the corrupted temple.
The forest grew dense as they approached, vegetation tangling together in ways that seemed almost deliberate—as if nature itself were trying to hide what lay ahead. Rust's wilderness skills eventually found a path through the brambles, and the party emerged into a clearing that stole the breath from Perry's lungs.
Ancient stone pillars defined the clearing's border. To the west rose a massive rock formation, three hundred feet across and a hundred feet high, its face carved into the likeness of an immense elk. The antlers drooped down from the weathered stone to form a fifty-foot-wide cave entrance.
Before it lay an ovoid pool, thick with algae, the water stagnant and foul-smelling.
Perry's faith told him what his eyes already suspected. This was a temple to Erastil—but corrupted, defiled, dying. No grass grew here. No plants at all. A shrine to a nature deity should have been bursting with life; instead, everything was dead or withering.
Rust tossed a rock into the pool. The smell that wafted back was sulfurous and wrong, and from within the cave came a low, rumbling growl.
Warning them away.
Perry brewed a quick elixir to sharpen his vision. Elroy raised his shield. Dravyn cast his rune-magic upon the guardian's blade.
Then the guardian of the temple emerged, and everything Perry understood about corrupted holy ground crystallized into brutal physical reality.
The creature was bear-shaped, but twisted beyond recognition. Blue fog clung to its massive form. Its eyes were deathly white, its fur patched and scabbed over. It moved wrong, its posture conveying not animal aggression but madness—pure, undiluted insanity given physical form. Twenty feet tall. Perhaps four tons of cursed fury.
Rust's oracle magic whispered secrets of weakness—and what they revealed changed everything.
"Deadeye's Shame," he reported, voice tight. "It's vulnerable to damage dealt by worshippers of Erastil. And its reflexes are terrible."
Perry felt something stir in his chest—not fear, but recognition. This creature was an abomination, a corruption of everything his god represented. And he was, apparently, uniquely suited to destroy it.
The battle that followed was brutal and close.
Elroy held the line as he always did, absorbing punishment that would have killed lesser warriors. The cursed guardian's claws found gaps in his defenses, tearing through armor and flesh with terrible efficiency. At one point, the bear grabbed him in a crushing embrace, jaws snapping toward his throat—only the guardian's raised shield kept those fangs from ending him entirely.
But Elroy's faith-forged determination held. And every moment he bought, the others used.
Grotdor's fire seared corrupted flesh. Dravyn's lightning and cold and flame worked in concert with the kineticist's assault, wearing the creature down through sustained magical pressure. Dog harried its flanks, buying precious seconds.
Perry's crossbow bolts found their marks with enhanced precision—each hit carrying the weight of divine displeasure. Where his quarrels struck, they struck harder, the creature's weakness to Erastil's faithful manifesting as additional wounds that refused to close properly.
And Rust's healing kept them standing. Golden warmth flowed from his hands when wounds threatened to become fatal, mending torn muscle and sealing ruptured vessels just quickly enough to keep the battle from tipping toward disaster.
The climax came in a single moment of perfect violence.
Elroy, battered and bloodied but finally free from the bear's grip, struck with everything he had left. His rune-enhanced longsword cleaved into the cursed guardian's shoulder, and the blow—combined with everything that had come before—was enough.
The creature collapsed with a final roar of pain and fury.
And then, as its body rapidly decomposed—from rotting carcass to patchy fur to skeleton to dust—something miraculous happened.
All around the clearing, grass began to grow. The algae-choked pool cleared, water becoming clean and pure. Nature itself reclaimed what corruption had stolen.
The shrine of Erastil began to heal.
The pool's water now smelled sweet and fresh. Those who drank from it found minor healing properties—a gift from the restored temple. The shrine wasn't truly consecrated yet; centuries of disrepair couldn't be undone instantly. But the worst had passed.
Someday, when their kingdom was established, they could return to finish the restoration.
They traveled west to complete their exploration, eventually discovering a bubbling hot spring that smelled of sulfur. Steam rose from waters that, despite the smell, looked rather pleasant—except for the five or six massive frogs basking in the warmth.
Each frog was the size of a large dog, with disturbingly prominent teeth. On a small muddy island nearby sat a pair of fine-looking boots, waterlogged but clearly valuable.
The frogs croaked aggressively as the party approached, dewlaps vibrating in territorial warning. These weren't intelligent creatures like Garuum—just predators defending their territory.
Grotdor had an idea.
Using his considerable acrobatic skills, the fire kineticist began an elaborate interpretive frog dance. Rust warned him not to make it a mating display, but the frogs' attention locked onto the spectacle regardless—one creature in particular seemed almost hypnotized.
"I can grab the boots from here with magic," Dravyn offered. "Or I can hit about half of them with an area effect."
Perry considered the territorial predators, the valuable boots, and the simple fact that they probably didn't want giant toothy frogs wandering around their future kingdom.
"The boots are secondary," he decided. "We deal with threats first."
The frogs continued their aggressive croaking, oblivious to the tactical assessment being conducted at their expense.
Grotdor kept dancing.