On the plain, the heat had been merciless. The third day in the wetlands made Oak realize he knew nothing of heat. He could hardly believe it, but the air was so damp sweat saturated him utterly, never evaporating from his skin. Shade offered no recourse from the wet furnace the swamp had turned into, not that there was any available at midday.

The sun blazed directly above the caravan from the open sky. It was excruciating, and nothing helped.

Oak stomped forward next to their wagon on wet boots, cursing his fate. Ur-Namma marched on the other side of the oxen, a grim expression on his lined face. The elf was not in a talkative mood. Neither was anyone else. Sadia had retreated to the wagon. Marching while wearing wet shoes had left the soles of her dainty feet horribly chafed.

Ashmedai's gifts had seen to Oak's bleeding heels and chafed thighs, but that was only one part of the problem. It was impossible to dry anything in the swamp, and the moment they had set out in the early morning, his soggy trousers had made their presence known. Wet cloth dragged against freshly healed slimy skin on every step, ripping his inner thighs apart.

Without the Boon of Demonic Constitution, Oak would have been doomed. Ur-Namma's legs held up better, mostly because the ancient elf was still such a beanpole that his thighs didn't rub together as he walked.

What I would not give for a jar of marching-salve right now.

Back in the Northlands, during the war, many of the more experienced carls had spread some fat-based salve on their inner thighs on long marches, to make sure their thighs didn't chafe during a march. Oak had quickly adopted the practice after a miserable forced march through the autumn rains had destroyed his legs.

He had tried asking if the teamsters had any, but most of them wrapped their thighs in linen instead to get a similar effect, and no one was willing to part with their precious wraps. There were no two ways about it. Oak was fucked six ways to Sunday, and cavalry was not coming to save the day.

15 miles.

They managed 15 miles on the third day, and Oak almost cried in relief when Tochukwu gave the order to make camp next to a large pond. It was a struggle, but he went with Sadia as the girl made her rounds, the enchanted medallion dangling from her grip.

Another family, this time from the independents, had fallen ill during the march. The father had the worst of it, vomiting out everything his desperate wife could feed him, as their three children looked on from the sidelines. The oldest son had a look on his face that would stay in Oak's dreams. His eyes had no life to them. Grief had replaced them with two foggy marbles, and aged him to adulthood in a single day.

Unlike his younger brothers, still clinging to hope, the eldest had already said goodbye to his old man.

Sadia did what she could and took no payment. "Had to do something for them. I can't have their deaths on my conscience," she whispered to him as they walked away. "Those poor souls."

Oak made no fuss about it. Taking coin in a moment like this would have been foolish. It was a long way to go till Chadash Merkavah and there might come a time they would need all the goodwill they could get.

The caravan's morale was so low that raising it without a shovel was an impossible task. Oak knew that digging in a swamp was a fool's errand and left such heroics to the delusional and the insane. Or at least more delusional and more insane than himself. Even a madman had to know when to call it quits.

Black smoke swirled over the sorry little fire Oak had built out of wet branches. The flame clung stubbornly to life, despite the lacking fuel and sorry weather. The four of them sat around the cookfire, staring into nothing. Oak felt like he was slipping between sleep and the waking world, thoughts muddled by the depressing surroundings and his hurting flesh.

A slim figure popped out of the wall of tall grass on the other side of the pond, dressed in nothing but a loincloth. The man held a spear and cocked his head when he saw the caravan.

"Huh," Oak said. "There is a man over there."

"What?" Sadia asked, staring at the bottom of her bowl.

"By the Hells!" Oak shot up to his feet, all traces of drowsiness gone from his mind. "There is a man over there!"

Ur-Namma glanced across the pond and lifted an eyebrow. "So it would seem. How quaint."

The man in question shook his head, as if he too was in the grips of bafflement, and vanished back into the sea of tall grass, growing out of the water. Gone like the wind Oak so desperately missed.

"Yakubu was right." Oak snorted and sat back down on his slimy log.

"What?" Sadia asked. The little spellsinger looked ready to keel over from exhaustion.

"About the swampfolk. They are real," Oak replied. "People actually live here."

Sadia looked around at the surrounding wetlands in dismay. A boghole on the right side of the road, mere ten feet from the campsite, burped out a cloud of marsh gas. The smell of rotten eggs suffused the air.

"I'm going to sleep now," Sadia said with a firm voice that left no room for any opposition. "Wake me up if the swampfolk attack us. Otherwise, I don't care to know a thing about them. Anyone living here must be raving mad."

***

It took them six days of marching to get across the wetlands. Every day that flew by took its toll on the caravan. Lethargy reigned supreme. On the morning of the sixth day, folk did their chores with slumped shoulders, gazes downcast and heads drooping.

Oak felt like the swamp had taken hold of him. No, that was not quite right. It had taken hold of everyone. If he let up his vigilance for a moment, he feared he might sink straight through the damp earth and sleep the dream of the dead in a watery grave, at the bottom of some forgotten boghole.

A feylight shining in the mist, leading travelers astray. That's what I would become. A corpse-candle burning where no flame should flourish.

The edge of the wetlands creeped up on him unnoticed, like a thief in the dark. Between one moment and the next, tall trees, dense undergrowth and impenetrable foliage surrounded the wagon-train. The swamp was behind them, at last.

Not a single soul celebrated. Oak felt the urge to raise his voice in triumph, but the impulse was faint, as if it had to cross a great distance to reach him. He kept his peace. People were too tired to care, and he didn't feel like making a big show of himself.

A curious-looking fruit tree by the side of the road caught Oak's attention, and he made his way to it. Tall and rich with clusters of round fruits heavy enough to cause its branches to droop, the tree towered over the dirt road snaking through the jungle.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Funny. I have never seen black fruits like that. I wonder what the yellow liquid dripping from them is?

Oak blinked. The fruits were rotten to the core, dripping with pus. And so was the tree, rotting from top to bottom, from the highest branch to the deepest root. His gaze passed from the fruit tree to the trunk next to it. Rot had eaten through the bark and revealed the heartwood within. On the forest floor, mold and decay had withered the underbrush, leaving sickly bushes and dying grass in their wake.

Alarmed, Oak took a step back towards the road. It was as if a membrane had fallen from his eyes and revealed the world for what it truly was. Birds didn't chirp in the foliage. Not a single animal's call pierced the air. The entire jungle rotted where it stood, bleeding with filth.

"What in the Hells?" Oak whispered, shaking his head.

"FATHER. OBSERVE." Geezer barked.

Heart thumping in his chest, Oak turned around to look at the long queue of oxen, wagons and people passing him and Geezer on the road. Looking at it all with fresh eyes sent shivers racing down his spine. Men and women with dull eyes stared straight ahead, their shuffling feet carrying them onwards, more out of habit than resilience.

A dog had just spoken, and no one saw fit to notice.

These people were not just tired. Some strange malaise had taken hold of them. Apathy and decay had seeped into their minds and drilled holes in their thoughts. Based on the rotting world around them, if Oak didn't figure something out in a timely fashion, those tendrils of corruption would soon twist flesh and sinew alike.

A conclusion Oak didn't want to reach wormed its way through his mind, heedless of the way it made his insides clench. It explained everything all too well. Why, whatever this was, rotted everything it touched. Why he and Geezer had not fallen under its spell.

"A Demon, Geezer. This has to be the work of a Demon," Oak murmured. A powerful enchantment could have maybe caused a similar effect and Warlocks could resist those better than most, but his gut told him otherwise. A smell that was not a smell tickled his nostrils. This had the touch of the Hells all over it.

"FILTH. FESTERING SQUALOR."

"Yeah," Oak swallowed the lump in his throat. "A Demon of Rot and Decay."

Worry hastened his stride as Oak rushed to check on Ur-Namma and Sadia. Geezer followed in his footsteps like a living shadow, hackles raised and lips twisted in a snarl. The elf shuffled along next to their wagon, his gaze resembling the incurious look of the oxen walking right next to him.

Oak grabbed Ur-Namma and shook him like the elf owed him money.

"What has gotten into you, Savage?" Ur-Namma asked in a drowsy voice. "Lay your grubby hands off your betters and let me walk in peace."

Seeing no other recourse, Oak slapped the elf in the face.

"Ouch! God in Heaven, Northerner!" Ur-Namma stumbled away from him, holding his reddening cheek. "What the fuck!"

"I'm sorry, but we have bigger problems, knife-ear. Look around you!" Oak shouted. "Look at the trees. Do you see the rot? Can you feel it, worming under the earth, poisoning the very air we breathe?"

"What are you saying, Oak?" Ur-Namma rubbed his eyes. "A tree is rotting? So what?"

"Look, elf!"

Ur-Namma sighed and looked around with a pensive expression on his face. "I already told you–"

The ancient elf's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Fuck." Ur-Namma grabbed hold of the handle of his longsword, long fingers squeezing down in a white-knuckled grip. "Fuck. My mind was bespelled. I fell victim to this filth and didn't even notice."

Geezer padded to the elf's side and poked his bony thigh with his snout. "BETTER?"

"No thanks to my own efforts, that is for sure," Ur-Namma grumbled. "How is Sadia?"

"I was about to check on her."

Compared to Ur-Namma, Sadia was in dire straits. She sat on the wagon bed and stared straight ahead, mumbling something incoherent about needing to rest when Oak spoke to her. He was loath to give the girl the same treatment he had given Ur-Namma, especially when he doubted it would be enough. A gentleman did not slap women, and while Oak was far from a gentleman, this was a rule he tried his best to follow.

Even a murderous madman needed standards.

Luckily, waking up Ur-Namma from his stupor paid dividends. The elf had a much better grasp of thaumaturgy than Oak did. He considered the problem, consulted Sadia's grimoire, and came up with a solution in record time.

"We will need to wait until the wagon-train stops for the night, but I think I have a way to wake her up."

"How long will it last?"

"Long enough for her to craft her own source of protection," Ur-Namma replied. "This is far from my area of expertise. She will have to do the heavy lifting herself."

***

Oak's worst fears turned out to be true.

Like the edges of an inflamed wound pulled apart by a chirurgeon's tweezers, the jungle parted and the small town of Al-Badra came into view, cloaked in a yellow miasma of corruption and decay. Wooden buildings sagged on their foundations, leaning against their neighbors like sad drunks after a wild night of drinking. Paint peeled from rotting walls and empty windows stared hauntingly at the dying world outside.

The piercing rays of the afternoon sun revealed a crumbled form lying in the middle of the muddy main street. Oak startled. It was the decaying corpse of a young boy, no more than five summers old. A chill crawled up his spine as he stared at the tiny, frail body covered in pustules and festering wounds.

Someone had killed that child. And no one had buried him.

A square keep made of gray stone stood at the center of town, like a knife stuck in the heart of a sick animal. Dark ichor dripped down the keeps crenelations and tendrils of green pus snaked down the formidable walls, vanishing within the miasma hiding much of the town from view.

A helpless wail sounded from somewhere inside Al-Badra, conveying nothing less than a desperate, all-encompassing need for salvation.

"Someone. Anyone. Deliver us from evil."

The Corse of Bloodshed hummed in the heart of his ontology, preparing for war. Strength and hardiness to spare, waiting for a spark of wrath to unleash them. Oak grabbed the handle of his cleaver and tried to calm his nerves. Ashmedai's infernal radiance guarded his soul, and a hot enough flame could burn away even the taint of demonic rot.

I will just have to use enough of it.

As if nothing was amiss, Tochukwu gave the order to make camp by the edge of town and the people obeyed like a herd of pack animals, slowly setting up their tents in the shadow of demonic corruption.

"Right," Oak said. "Let's get started. What do you need, elf?"

"Salt. I need salt and your blood."

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