“Yes,” said Whiska, matter of factly.
“I don’t like…how poo…smells,” said Borg.
And so on for another fifteen minutes. After that, finally, we got on with it.
Okay, so the smell was otherworldly, but the real danger was the presence of innumerable sinkholes. Even in the middle of the day, with the sun at its peak, the swamp was only dimly lit. Swamp gas and the light-absorbing shrubs that dotted the few pockets of solid ground combined to absorb much of the sunlight before it could burn off the top layer of fog that perpetually hung over the area. That made seeing the sinkholes almost impossible, and it’s not like there was a lighted path with enormous arrows and warning signs featuring funny pictures of people falling off the path and suffering horrific deaths to guide you safely through. Even Nadi, a trained ranger who could track a mouse through a cornfield, couldn’t easily navigate the swamp—the constantly shifting landscape made it impossible to walk the same pathway twice, and you had to test every step before you transferred your weight from back foot to front foot if you didn’t want to get sucked down to a stinky demise.
While the patient approach suited Borg quite nicely, asking Whiska to take her time and tread carefully was a little bit like asking a bear not to defecate in the woods, and then tying him up in the middle of the woods and force-feeding him Rajami food (which, it goes without saying, even though I’m saying it, is considerably spicier than the average bear’s fare). It was only after we had dragged her out of the muck a third time—smelling like Rajami food that had just come out of a tied-up bear—that she finally agreed, albeit grudgingly and with the liberal use of epithets in at least three different languages.
By the time daylight started to fade (not that it made much of a difference), I looked back in an effort to gauge our progress…and proceeded to liberally use epithets in three different languages—the common tongue, elvish, and a few creative orc curses I’d picked up when demonstrating certain Heloisian submission techniques on a very confused (but not unaroused) High Chieftain Gnurk. Unless my eyes deceived me, we’d gone no more than one hundred yards. Maybe not even seventy-five.
“We need to make camp soon,” said Nadi as she surveyed our surroundings. “If we try to wander around here in the dark, we’re all going to smell like Whiska.”
“It would be an improvement in every case!” shouted Whiska.
“Be that as it may,” said Rummy, “I’m not entirely sure I’ve got Ms. Tailiesin’s intestinal fortitude, so would prefer to remain, at least insomuch as it’s possible in the middle of a multiday trek through a swamp, unsullied by muck.”
“It’s getting…dark,” said Borg.
“There,” I said, pointing to our left. “That mound over there. It should be big enough for all of us to spread out. Or, at least, sit down.”
Nadi nodded and led the way. Even though the mound was only about 15 yards away, it took us nearly an hour to navigate the smucking pathway (“smucking” is the only word I can think of that accurately describes the combination of sucking and muck; it’s also less offensive than how I actually referred to the pathway, though it does rhyme with at least one of the words I used). When we reached the mound, we collapsed, tossing our packs down and not moving for a while. You don’t realize how exhausting slow, careful walking is until you stop doing it.
Our respite ended when a loud rumble shook the mound.
“What in the name of flaming cockroach anuses was that?!” yelled Whiska, leaping to her feet.
“Flaming cockroach anuses?” I silently mouthed to Rummy, who shrugged.
“Weapons out,” said Nadi, straining to see through the dim light.
“I bet it’s bog men,” said Rummy.
“It’s not bog men,” I replied.
“How do you know it’s not bog men?” asked Rummy.
“Quiet!” said Nadi.
We stood in silence, looking everywhere but seeing nothing.
“I’m…hungry,” said Borg. “My stomach…is rumbling.”
Nadi slapped her forehead as Rummy patted Borg on the arm. “Maybe a little warning next time, big guy.”
“I just…gave you one,” replied the rock giant, nonplussed.
“Warnings are supposed to come before the thing happens,” said Rummy helpfully. “Otherwise it’s just a recap of what happened.”
We set to preparing dinner, pulling rations from our packs. Whiska scraped together a bit of moss and pointed her staff at it, but before she could utter an incantation, Nadi grabbed the staff. Whiska’s eyes flared. “Never touch my staff, you pointy-eared tree licker!”
“No,” replied Nadi, her voice steely. “We’ve already made too much noise. You want to start a fire? Why not just send up a flare or build a lighthouse to let the bog men know where we are?”
“Bog men—bah!” said Whiska, but she sat back down without setting anything on fire, which was no small thing for her.
We ate in silence, save for Borg’s crunching, Whiska’s slurping, Rummy’s lip smacking, and Nadi’s teeth grinding (which, to be fair, was a result of Borg’s crunching, Whiska’s slurping, and Rummy’s lip smacking). When we were done, Nadi looked once more into the fading light, nodded when she was satisfied that no imminent threats presented themselves, and turned to face the group.
“We need to get some rest,” she said, “but we also need to stay vigilant. We’ll sleep in shifts and double up on watches. I need less sleep, so I’ll take the first watch alone. Whiska and Heloise, you’re up next. Rummy and Borg, you’ll finish things off. We move at first light, or whatever passes for first light around here. With any luck, we’ll be through the swamp in a couple of days.”
It was a good plan until a couple of days turned into two weeks.
There are only so many consecutive days you can slog through a bog, with the ever-present threat of falling into the muck (which not only sullied clothes, but also entailed a not small possibility of death) and without being able to heat the very meager food you’ve got with you, before you start to go a little crazy. Not surprisingly, Whiska succumbed first to swamp madness, though I’m not entirely sure I could tell the difference between normal Whiska and swamp mad Whiska. It was when Borg started giggling hysterically after an alligator nearly ate Rummy (and injured him quite badly) that I realized the mental state of the party was rapidly deteriorating. (Rock giant giggles, incidentally, sound a little bit like bullfrog hiccups.)
Toward the end of the second week, I pulled Nadi aside. “I’m not quite sure how long we can keep this going,” I said, pointing at Rummy, who was using his index finger to blub-blub his lips while Whiska yelled at a snail for moving too fast.
“I’m not sure we have a choice,” replied Nadi grimly. “It’ll take us just as long to go back as it will to go forward.”
I sighed. “At least we haven’t seen any bog men yet.”
Just then, there was a horrible blorking sound, and a muck-covered head popped out of the swamp. It was dark green and brown, had no discernible facial features beyond a squinty pair of eyes, and, when it fully emerged to the point where only the bottom half of its legs remained obscured by the swamp, it stood about eight feet tall.