Uzca sat beside the fire, warming his hands against the cool night air.

"How spooky would it be to head out into the swamp at night? Gives me the creeps," Bezben said.

"Oh, believe me, it's creepy enough during the day," Thad said. "The swamp's tree cover is thinner than the forest here, and parts are essentially clear, but there's usually a blanket of fog, so you can only see maybe one or two dozen feet off the road. You just never know what's lurking out there."

"Gods, man, are you trying to give me nightmares?"

"You brought it up!"

"What kind of creatures live in the swamp? What's so dangerous out there?" Uzca asked.

"All kinds of things. There are areas of the world where magic warps creatures. The Livian Valley is an example; they have the ghouls, of course, but they also have fire hounds and a type of ground worm that can use earth magic. The Meglemen swamp is another are we see this magical warping. Most of the things you need to watch out for are mundane threats—miniature trolls, for example. Don't let the name fool you—they're as big as a pony and tough as nails. They hunt in packs but generally don't get too close to the road. If we see some, most likely, we'll wait for them to cross the road and move on. They don't typically hunt humans, but they'll attack if startled. Alligators can be a problem, but they're easy enough to avoid; just stay away from the water's edge. Bugs, believe it or not, are probably the most deadly thing in the swamp. People have contracted fevers and other diseases, passing through the swamp safely, only to die after reaching their destinations.

"Then there are the magic creatures, which are mostly harmless with a few exceptions. Will-o-wisps are the least of them. Marsh nymphs would be a problem for solo travelers. Gorkels are tough, but their magic is undeveloped, and they aren't particularly aggressive. What you absolutely don't want to see is a Swamp Hag."

"I've never heard of any of those," Uzca said.

"Ah! Sorry. I forget. Many are common folk stories for people in the areas surrounding the Meglemen, though I suspect the stories of Swamp Hags are know much father away. Will-o-wisps are glowing lights that draw people into the fog and trees. They're not, strictly speaking, dangerous on their own. They feed on residual magic, though, and have a vested interest in leading people to their deaths. If you see a light in the fog, ignore it."

"Well, that's only completely terrifying," Bezben said, glancing out of the open refuge gate.

"The Marsh Nymphs only show up outside the wooded areas, in the marshes, as their name would imply. They try to draw in lone travelers and can bewitch people into a sort of mind control. They're not dangerous to groups, as they don't attack directly, and people will usually stop their friends from just wandering off into the marshes. It's the same general rule—if you hear an enchanting song from the marsh, it's best to ignore it. Gorkels...well, they're harder to describe. Suffice it to say if we see some Gorkels, you'll know it. They're about as dangerous as the miniature trolls and act similarly. We should be able to ignore them if we see a cluster.

"There are a few other rare creatures in the swamp and marsh areas, but the only one you'll probably hear about, whether or not we see one, is a Swamp Hag. Hmm...how can I describe one of these...they're highly magical creatures and highly intelligent. When people talk about witches in a derogatory manner, it's typically stories of Swamp Hags that have changed a little over the years. They're truly wretched to look at, picture—"

"Hey, Thad?" Bezben looked uncharacteristically worried. "Maybe we should talk about them in the morning..."

"Ah. Quite right, Bezben. It's getting late, and I shouldn't be scaring you both with stories right before bed. We can talk about them on the way out of camp tomorrow!"

"I look forward to it. I definitely have some questions about the other creatures," Uzca said.

"I'm going to sleep before anyone else tells me anything awful," Bezben said, climbing into his bedroll.

"We should all get some rest," Uzca said. "It sounds like we'll need our wits about us tomorrow."

* * *

Billy wasn't afraid of the dark. No, out here in the swamp, he was afraid of the lights.

As soon as he entered the swamplands, he saw faint lights passing through the trees. His nana always said the Will-o-wisps guided souls from the world into the afterlife. Billy wasn't sure he bought into it, but seeing the magical creatures all over the swamp was unnerving nonetheless.

He probably wouldn't have really been scared of them, but no one had ever told him about the laughter.

Every time a wisp passed behind a tree and vanished, never coming out the other side, he heard a hollow, ghostly laugh drift through the air. The swamp was constantly laughing at him. Traveling with a group, he had never heard anything like this before. Most groups typically set up a camp with a big fire right at the edge of the marshes. It was the best place to stop halfway across the swamp. The fire kept away pretty much everything, and he'd never had to walk through any of the area at night before.

"It's okay, Billy, they're just wisps," he said to himself. "Nothing to be worried about."

A branch cracked to his right, and he jumped. He searched the darkness, but the shadows of the trees were black on black. The full moon was well over a week past, and the light wasn't good enough to make anything out. The only thing he knew for sure was that wisps couldn't break branches.

He picked up his already punishing walking pace. It was typically an entire day to cross the outer edge of the swamp, and then a half day across the marshes to the plains that bordered Brightwater Crossing. He was moving quickly though, and guessed he would make it by tomorrow afternoon if he kept his pace up. That was a good pace.

Another crack made him pause. He spun, looking back.

"H-hello?"

Silence was all that greeted him. The laughter had stopped.

A slight breeze blew through the trees. It made his hair stand on end, and that made him feel like he was being watched. He looked around. No will-o-wisps moved through the trees. Silence.

He said a silent prayer to the Living God and turned back the way he was heading. He was practically moving at a sprint now.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

The last snap came from in front of him, and he skidded to a halt, panting. A huge, shambling figure left the swamp trees out of the tree line in front of him. He held his breath as the creature moved by. It was easily ten feet tall. He got a good look at it when it walked into a shaft of thin moonlight. A mass of small creatures stacked on top of each other. They had skin-like tree bark and had grown into one another, forming a larger whole.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Billy breathed a sigh of relief. A Gorkel cluster wasn't dangerous unless he antagonized it. Hands on his knees, he panted and waited for the creature to slowly ambulate across the road.

When the cluster was gone, he moved again, passing by where the creatures had entered the swamp once more.

Snap.

Another branch broke behind him. He turned, expecting to see the Gorkel cluster wandering back into the road.

Instead, he found himself face to face with a skeletal figure. Emaciated flesh stuck to bones, and softly glowing yellow eyes lit up a face that ended in a long, razor-sharp beak. The Swamp Hag smelled like rotting flesh. Its beak opened, and a chittering sound emanated from it.

Billy tried to scream, but the Swamp Hag's taloned fingers had already pierced his neck. The last thing he saw as his vision faded was a savage beak ripping into his body.

* * *

Thad hated crossing swamps—all swamps. Sure, the Meglemen was nothing to write home about. Wild, aggressive beasts weren't great, and people had every right to despise and hate them, but what they often forgot about when talking about the crossing was just how awful swamps were in general.

He reaffirmed this belief with yet another biting insect crushed beneath his palm. Swamps were buggy. They smelled bad. They were humid. They were buggy. They were everything Thad disliked.

His companions from the mountains seemed to be handling the crossing well. Bezben occasionally slapped his own neck. After the first two blows had ended in painful yelps, he remembered to use his left hand. Uzca, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind the bugs at all. It was almost suspicious how not irritated he was.

People in the caravan behind them were generally quiet—a trip through the Meglemen Swamp did that to people, but he still heard the occasional slap and curse as people tried to fend off the bugs. Ostensibly, many of these people were used to the crossing and the stinging and biting insects.

Thad focused on Uzca's exposed neck as he walked. After about a quarter-hour, he was rewarded with an answer. An enormous black fly landed on the back of Uzca's neck. After a moment, the skin around the bug turned to a dull silver. It was hard to notice in the early morning light, but yes, Uzca was cheating!

Thad was insanely jealous of Uzca's casual body modification magic. He hadn't lied to the man when he said those effects were typically high-order magic. Body modification magic was hard and expensive to begin with, but the highlander's control was exceptional. He idly wondered how Uzca would fare at the Mage's Academy. Was it even possible for the people with gifts to use magic normally? He had to assume it was since the priests in Amailesh had both divine magic and regular magic.

"Are you planning a murder?"

Cecily's voice made Thad nearly jump out of his boots, and Uzca and Bezben turned back to see what was wrong.

"Ah! Sorry. You startled me. No problem here, everyone!"

Uzca and Bezben nodded and continued on.

"Sorry, Thaddeus, I didn't mean to startle you. Just thought you looked like you were thinking about how hard it would be to dig a grave for your friend there."

"Oh, that wouldn't be a problem," Thad said. "No one would find him in the swamp. At least not before the animals stripped all the flesh from his bones."

"Well then, you should probably kill him before we arrive in Brightwater. Otherwise, that's a lot of dirt to move for a man that size."

Thad laughed awkwardly. "You make a fair point. Is there something I can do for you, Cecily?"

"Nope, just making the rounds and checking on everyone. Making sure people are paying attention. You're the first who didn't notice me coming."

Thad's face flushed slightly. He had always had a problem fixating on small questions or mysteries, to the detriment of other things he was trying to do.

"Ah, yes. I was daydreaming a bit. I will do my best to pay attention from now on!"

Cecily nodded and headed back into the main body of travelers.

"Weren't you going to tell us about the swamp hags?" Uzca asked him, noticing Cecily leaving.

"I was! How could I forget?"

"Oh, good," Bezben groaned.

"We know a decent amount about swamp hags, despite their rarity. The first thing to note is that swamp hags are formed from magic. There's a particular kind of beast that looks like a cross between a bird and a person. They're short and docile. Atriels, I think they're called. Anyway, they're moderately intelligent and have a unique ritual. When one of their number dies, they specially embalm the body and bring it to the swamp, dumping it out deep in the remote locations.

"As I mentioned yesterday, there's enough magic floating around in a place like this that you can occasionally get special reactions. Something happens between an Atriel corpse, the magic, and the embalming process. The result is a swamp hag."

"Every time? It seems like there would be more of these things running around."

"That's a good point. I've never heard the specifics on that, but I know that atriels are a long lived species, around forty years is typical, so there wouldn't be a huge number constantly deposited. Enough that yes, you would expect to see more if every one became a swamp hag. My guess is that there's just an element of chance to it. The magic has to coallece in the right location in the right amount of time, that sort of thing. That is just a guess though."

"What do they look like?"

"They're tall and thin. Mostly skin and bones that were distended from their original form into a grotesque monstrosity. They'll have huge talons for fingers, and their beaks are razor sharp. Other than that, they'll most likely be dressed in rags, remnants of the clothing they were embalmed in."

"Yep. I'm really glad you didn't tell me about that before we went to bed," Bezben said.

"Yeah, that sounds awful," Uzca agreed. "So they're some kind of undead monster?"

"Basically. A form of magically animated dead. Undead isn't a bad description, I suppose. They can kill easily enough with claws, but they also have terribly powerful magic, though they're limited by a shallow mana pool."

"Have you ever seen one?"

"Not in person, no. Just some drawings in various books," Thad said. Then he added in a lower voice that wouldn't be overheard. "They're the basis of a lot of stories meant to scare children in the lowlands. You'd be hard-pressed to find a child who couldn't describe one to you. Do you have any stories of similar creatures?"

Bezben shrugged, and Uzca didn't respond for a long moment.

"Nothing so magical," the big highlander said. "We have a lot of stories about wolves. They're just as often portrayed as monsters as heroes, though."

"I guess it makes sense for a people to tell stories about the things they're familiar with."

"Well, I'm glad we haven't seen anything like that," Bezben said.

As they came around a bend in the road, the fog gave way to a grizzly sight. The road was covered in blood and bits of flesh. The odd piece of fabric littered the area, and they drew up short.

"Bezben, get Cecily. She'll want to see this, I think."

The highlander ran off toward the wagons. Uzca was still holding his spear for the time being, so his gait was smooth and unburdened.

"Was an animal attacked?" Uzca asked.

"I...I think this might have been a person."

"It's fresh...there wasn't anyone else waiting to cross today, and everyone at the camp would have left with any group that left yesterday. Where would it have come from?"

Cecily jogged up next to Bezben, startled when she saw the carnage that littered the road. "Ah! What the hell happened up here?"

"Looks like someone was attacked," Thad said.

A few others were coming up behind the group, and Thad thought he heard someone begin to wretch before running off.

"Why do you think it was a person?" Cecily asked. She examined the small bits of flesh, and he admitted that it would be hard to tell were it not for one specific detail.

Uzca held up a hat. "I don't think swamp creatures are wearing hats, are they?" He looked to Thad with genuine curiosity. Thad shook his head.

"Well, that's no good. Let's get a count going. Anyone gone missing?"

The caravan had stopped, and each group quickly accounted for everyone.

Cecily just stood and scratched her head, confused by the same questions Uzca had asked earlier. A man from one of the refuge groups came up.

"I think I saw that hat. There was another fellow at the refuge for a few days. Bought some booze off of me, he did. I think he was wearing that hat. I didn't think to look for him when the caravan arrived, but I don't see him around now."

Cecily looked between the man and the hat. "Why would he have come into the swamps on his own?"

The man shrugged, "I didn't know him, but he seemed to keep to himself and his drink mostly. Couldn't tell you."

"Alright. Well, I guess that explains the person. Now, all we have to deal with is whatever did this. We're going to keep moving, but everyone is going to keep their eyes peeled for whatever did this. I'm not losing anyone in the caravan today!"

A chorus of agreement went up, and the group prepared themselves to move once more. Women and children—there were only a few—were put on the wagons while the regular caravan guards took the rear and a few on each side of the convoy. Thad and the others stayed up front, and Thad prepared a spell.

Thad held the spell inside his spirit, where it would be ready to cast but not yet drain his mana reserves. He didn't want to say anything and worry anyone else, but the kind of brutality that they were passing wouldn't have been caused by any average creature. There was only one thing that lived in these swamps that could, or would, do that to a man.

A swamp hag was nearby, and it probably wouldn't hesitate to kill again.