“I...” Grub’s brow furrowed. “I’ll keep that in mind?”
Dave gave him a thumbs up, while Loth tried not to chortle.
Grub wrapped his hand in the reins of the horse and urged it forward. “We should keep moving. The longer we stay here, the more likely we are to succumb to the fumes.”
“You need to rest,” Loth argued, even as he wondered why he cared. It was because he needed Grub to be his patsy and play prince once they reached the capital, he told himself. This was survival, not sentiment.
Grub raised his eyebrows. “If we stop now, we die.”
Well, Loth supposed he had a point when he put it like that. Survival, he reminded himself, and not sentiment.
They continued on into the swamp, following the boggy paths, and picking their way around the strange, bubbling patches of mud that stank of sulphur and death. The trees here were twisted and ominous, their branches stripped bare of leaves. Most of them were rotting. Loth wondered how they’d even managed to grow in the first place.
The day darkened, and Loth had no idea if it was because night was approaching, or if the mist was growing thicker.
“Could we turn back?” he asked. “Try to find the road again?”
“That would have been much easier if we still had a fucking map,” Calarian pointed out.
They continued on, Loth subtly tugging Grub closer and taking his weight as they walked. “I know what you’re doing,” Grub groused.
“What am I doing?”
“You think I can't walk by myself when I’m perfectly capable.” Grub stumbled as he spoke, giving lie to his words.
“Nonsense,” Loth replied. “I’m just allowing you the pleasure of touching my near-naked body, that’s all. It seems like that charitable thing to do after you’ve been locked away for so long.”
“I...” Grub swayed alarmingly. “What?”
Loth put an arm around Grub’s waist, and Grub didn’t even try to fight him.
“We can’t stop,” Grub mumbled, blinking rapidly. “Can’t stop in the swamp.”
“Yes, the gas,” Loth said. “We won’t stop. We’ll keep going. Reach some higher ground, perhaps.”
“No,” Grub said, squinting sidelong at Loth. “Not the gas. The monsters.”
And then he pitched forward spectacularly into the mud, and Loth was so surprised that he let it happen.
Five minutes later they were picking their way through the Swamp of Death still. Grub was slung over the back of the horse like a saddlebag. He had a strip of cloth torn from Loth’s doublet wrapped around his face, since they could no longer share the scarf and Loth wasn’t about to part with it—there were limits to his generosity—and the doublet was ruined anyway. Loth was relieved that nobody had taken Scott’s advice to just roll Grub’s body into the swamp and leave him there. Pie flitted about Grub like a drunk will-o’-the-wisp, eventually settling on his arse and folding up his tiny wings to rest.
“He said monsters, didn’t he?” Loth queried. “Definitely monsters?”
“I like monsters,” Dave said, and then thought for a moment. “No, wait. I like mustard.”
Loth’s throat was beginning to hurt, and he was fairly certain the swamp gasses were starting to addle his brain again. “Does anyone here have any actual knowledge about the Swamp of Death?”
He stared at four very blank faces.
“I’m not from around here,” Ada said at last.
“Me neither,” said Calarian.
“Mustard,” said Dave.
They looked to Scott.
“Well,” Scott said, scratching his nose and making his makeshift mask dance, “I have heard things. But we’re fine. We’re the heroes.”
“What have you heard, Scott?” Loth asked.
“Oh.” Scott waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing to worry about, your Worshipfulness. Just this story about some monster who lives in the Swamp of Death who catches lost and unwary travellers and then kills them and eats their flesh and wears their skin as clothes.”
“Huh,” said Loth. “You see, the issue is that we’re currently lost and unwary.”
“Actually, I’m pretty fucking wary after hearing that,” Ada muttered.
“Point,” Loth said. A thought struck him. “Who exactly told the story, Scott?”
Scott shrugged. “Just a stranger in town. He was probably making it up for the glory and the free drinks.”
Loth glanced at Grub’s prone figure and resisted the urge to pet his arse. “Except Grub also knew about monsters in the swamp. And he wasn’t out drinking with any strangers in taverns, was he?”
For someone who’d claimed to have been a hostage in Delacourt’s dungeons, Grub knew an awful lot of things, actually. Loth didn’t trust it—Loth didn’t trust anything, but that was beside the point. Grub was definitely not being honest with him. And maybe they’d gotten off on the wrong foot what with Loth telling everyone he fucked horses, but was that anything to hold a grudge over? Besides, if Grub hadn’t been so delightfully prickly when they’d met, Loth wouldn’t have felt the need to continually poke at him. He only had himself to blame.
“Anyway,” Scott continued blithely, “I’m sure that the monster doesn’t really have claws the size of ploughshares and red eyes that burn like flames.”
“Or vicious fangs dripping with the blood of his enemies,” Dave agreed. Everyone swivelled to look at him. “Monsters, you said. Not mustard. Monsters in the swamp, yeah, I've heard of those. They’re terrifying.”
And then he shuddered. And Loth didn’t want to even imagine what kind of monsters made an orc shudder. Except he had to imagine it, didn’t he? Because here they fucking were, in the Swamp of Death, which, it now turned out, had monsters. He really, really should have stayed in a dungeon cell in Delacourt, even if he had been given the world’s most annoying cellmate.
“Well, that’s just great!” Ada threw up her hands. “We’re about to be consumed by a bloodthirsty something, and I haven’t even been paid yet!”
“What? That’s your main concern here?” Loth stared, open-mouthed.
“It's a matter of principle, for a dwarf. Never die with unresolved debt. It brings dishonour to the family.” She fixed Scott with a glare. “So before we get munched, crunched, and spat out, I want my gold, or else it won't be the monster you have to worry about.”
“We won’t get munched and crunched,” Scott maintained stoutly. “It’s a fairy story. And we’re the heroes! Whoever heard a ballad where the hero got eaten?”
“Um,” Calarian ventured, “maybe those don’t get written, because the hero isn’t around to tell about how they got eaten?”
Scott went deathly pale as reality finally penetrated. “We’re—we might be in actual danger here,” he whispered, horrified. “We might be the heroes who don’t make it home.”
“I don’t think they’re called heroes, Scott,” Loth said gently. “I think they’re called victims.”