Another day of traveling, after sleeping in hammocks the night before, because nobody ever sleeps on the damp ground; unless they want to be carpeted in thousands of crawling, biting insects. Some larger than your hand. Worse yet, there is a huge species of ground spider that hunts at night, it has been rumored to reach the size of a large dog, the locals call it ‘the dog spider’ because of the size reference. Its bite isn’t terribly venomous, but that is hardly relevant with a spider of such a large size. Either way, it’s essential that a campfire is always burning at night, this keeps most of the large and dangerous critters at bay.
And we haven’t even begun to talk about the serpents that dwell in the stifling swamp; some are venomous, some are constrictors, some are small, some are large, and one particular species is so large that the guides go to great lengths to avoid its known territories. In the local language it’s called something difficult to pronounce, but it means ‘the last hug.’
They take good care of their horses, but the horses hate this place, they conveyed as much to Koronos through the Bond. Shifts are taken each night where someone stays up for several hours to keep watch and make sure the horses are okay, and to kill anything too big that wanders too close to camp, each of them takes a shift. Koronos takes a shift each night as well, even though his bodyguards try to discourage this because they feel that such a task is too far beneath him, with being the head-of-state and all.
Because of intense rains, the normal path is flooded, so the guides take the group on a more dangerous alternative path that brings them precariously close to the territories of the great serpents, the place where it is known that the Last Hug resides and hunts.
Eventually, they reach a place that is essentially a long narrow pathway crowded with gigantic swamp trees with deep, dark black water on each side; it seems to continue for hundreds of paces or more, but the distance is too hard to judge from all the vines, trees and foliage. The horses do not like this place, they become very nervous, too nervous to safely ride, so the group all dismount and slowly walk them in; the horses reluctantly capitulate.
As they progress, things immediately start to make splashing sounds as the critters dive and duck under the water, most likely frogs, turtles, possibly some smaller serpents. Corvannafax sees something big slide under the water at the edge of her peripheral, creating a wake that is far too big to be a mere frog or turtle, however, it is gone before she can ascertain what it was, and it disappears into the inky black water. Distant unknown birds and primate tree dwellers call out in the distance, as well as the cacophony of frogs and the multitudes of unknown insects. Eyes of the rest of the group dart about, looking for danger, but it’s the guides that are the most nervous because they know what resides here.
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Progress is slow and noisy; they often have to hack away foliage and vines so the horses can get through. “Perhaps it was a mistake to bring the horses this far into this place,” Says Koronos, it was more of a statement than a question.
Strangely enough, even though steel is well known throughout the world, the guides use bronze blades for hacking through foliage. It makes sense when one accounts for the intense humidity and constant wet environment, steel doesn’t last very long here; it turns to dust in a few years.
From the shadows it strikes, grabbing a pack horse by the neck in its huge jaws, it is a massive serpent, nearly seven men laid head to toe in length and as tall man’s stride in width, weighing no less than 180 stone. In the carnage that ensues, the horse whinnies, the other horses break away and run. The only horse that doesn’t break and run is Abyss, he’s a highly trained jet-black warhorse of an unusually large size.
In nearly the blink of an eye, Pericles hacks and slashes the great serpent, and two arrows drill it in the side of the head of the beast from Hybornyesis, followed immediately by Skullcrusher’s battle axe. Corvannafax jumps on top of the serpent and drives her sword into the neck just behind the skull, but she is quickly thrown off and she goes into a roll to mitigate the impact of hitting the ground.
With a mighty blow of its tail, it plows into the group, Shelove and Koronos are lightning fast and dodge the hit, but the guides and the bodyguard all go flying into the inky black water, except for Corvannafax even though the tail hits her, she jumps off of it, doing a backflip off of it and lands on her feet, because she was essentially ready for the strike. Koronos rolls underneath the beast, with an incredible spear thrust with enough power and force to pierce the skull and into the brain of the beast, killing it.
Once they get out the black water and with mouths wide open in awe, the guides just stand and stare at what they just witnessed, with one holding their cracked ribs and the other has a broken arm. They have heard of legendary hunters killing the Last Hug serpents, but have never seen it occur, however, the damage is already done, the pack horse is dead, the bite from the serpent was strong enough to break its neck.
After an hour of tending their injuries and wounds, and retrieving the horses, they make haste to get out of the area. The guide with the broken arm heads back to the village because he can no longer continue, Skullcrusher puts a field splint on the guide’s arm to stabilize it before he leaves for the village. So now they are down to one guide that has cracked ribs and only one pack horse to carry their camping gear and meager provisions.
“Are you well enough to continue?” Koronos asks the guide, Corvannafax translates.
The guide nods in assurance that he is well enough.