Things weren’t any better in the morning.

Or in the afternoon, as they trudged on down the path—east toward the shore, as had been agreed.

“The trouble is, he’s trying too hard,” Nalyn confided in Callania, who nodded in agreement.

“But if you tell him that, he gets defensive,” Callania said.

Nalyn risked a look over her shoulder to see if Bill could hear them. He was a good ten yards behind, plodding along steadily, with a sulky look on his face.

“Of course, he’s not doing himself any favors by dawdling along at the back and pouting,” she sighed.

“Do you think I should go and talk to him?” Callania asked.

“Let him stew,” Nalyn smiled. “A little bit of self-reflection never hurt anyone, and besides, I’m far more interested in hearing about you. You were telling me about where you grew up?”

“Oh! Well, it is a tiny little nothing island in the middle of the Six Seas called Hallinet,” Callania said. “I suppose it is closest to Laleah, if I had to guess, but no one really goes anywhere all that often. My parents, my whole tribe, were very big on being self sufficient.” She frowned. “Actually, I think we were pretty sheltered. I do not think my parents have a particularly high opinion of… well, anyone who is not an elf, really.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“A sister. We are twins. We look exactly alike, but as people we could not be more different. You?”

“No siblings, though I often wished for some when I was growing up.” Nalyn halted as Torbek and Elion, who were leading the party, stopped short. “What’s happening now?”

“Path forks,” Elion said simply. “Checking which way to go.”

“Pretty simple, I would have thought,” Bill said, coming up behind them. “We need to go east, so turn east.”

“You know what else is simple?” Sestra put in. “Staying awake while you’re on watch. You know what else is simple? Probably that spell you tried to cast. So I’m not all that sure you should be telling people what’s simple and what isn’t, right now.”

That wasn’t quite the way Nalyn would have phrased it, true though it might have been. She watched Bill crumple again.

“He is right this time, though,” Callania remarked. “We need to head east, so it makes sense to take the right fork.”

The other option was to head toward the mountains, topped with the twisted black glass shrine of Wulfila, as Bill pointed out. Nalyn looked up at it and shivered.

“When I was a child, we heard stories about Wulfila. We were told she eats children and decorates her shrine with their bones,” she said.

“We heard about her too,” Elion whimpered. “We heard that before she eats them, she uses them as slaves, polishing the black glass windows.”

“I never had parents, and I’m starting to think I was better off,” Sestra scoffed. “All they do is tell you scary stories to make you behave, or tell you to get a job and make you cry. I bet Wulfila, whoever she is, is just a harmless old woman doing harmless things away up there.”

At that moment, there was a flash of light from the tower, and all six of them glanced up in fear.

“Or not?” Sestra gulped.

But no matter what Wulfila was or wasn’t, they couldn’t go any further in the dark. They pitched their tents in a tight little semi-circle around a small campfire.

“Right, let us decide on the watch,” Callania said.

“I can take the first watch,” Bill volunteered.

“No,” replied every other person in the party.

“We can’t trust you,” Torbek pronounced. “You had your chance last night and you let us down, badly.”

“Surely I should get a second chance!”

“No.” Elion, once the person who had been the most willing to give Bill the benefit of the doubt, was the one to shoot him down. “You’re talking about us giving you a second chance with our lives, Bill. Our lives. We gave you a chance last night, and our lives were so unimportant to you… you were so complacent about our safety, that you fell asleep in minutes. If I hadn’t stayed awake…” He shuddered. “I don’t know what would have happened. But we can’t take those kinds of chances, out here in the middle of nowhere. We’re all we have, and we have to be sure that we make good choices. Trusting you to keep us safe, well, you already showed us that’s not a good choice.”

It was a long and sobering speech to come from the young and usually chipper elf, and though Bill pouted and scowled throughout it, when Elion was finished speaking, Torbek clapped him on the shoulder proudly.

“Well said, elfling.”

In the end it was Nalyn who took the first watch. She sat on a log with one hand lightly on her axe, staring into the darkness until her watch was over, then woke Callania for the second watch, and stayed up to sit with her.

The rest of the group, she could take or leave, but there was just something about Callania. Everything she said was so interesting. Everything she did was so graceful. Nalyn hadn’t ever really thought about it before, but she could see herself being close to Callania long after this quest was over.

“You know what I think?” she said, after a long period of silence where they both simply sat and stared at the fire.

“Hmm?”

“I think you’re interesting,”

“Me? You are the interesting one!” Callania exclaimed. “I have never been friends with a dwarf before. And you are so good with your axe. I am… rather useless with my bow.” She grinned and ran a hand through her long blonde hair, smoothing it back. “I try, but I am not very good.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you think you are.”

“Look at the last skirmish! Both of my arrows went completely wide,” Callania pointed out.

“But Bill had just cast that light spell! You were blinded!”

“Nalyn… I am an elf. I speak Ehvari,” Callania said quietly. “I knew what Bill had done the moment he did it. I might not have dived to cover my face like Elion did, but I knew enough to look away. Those arrows went wide because I cannot shoot to save myself. I have never been able to shoot straight.”

“Well… why are you a ranger then?”

“What else is there?”

Nalyn goggled a bit at that, but quickly realized Callania wasn’t being facetious. “Being a wizard? A fighter? A cleric, a bard? A lawyer, a councilor? There are so many more options than just ranger, and many of them would mean you still get to quest.”

“Where I am from, that just is not how things happen. We are elves, and elves are rangers, and that is that.” Callania looked pensive. “I have had a bow in my hand since I was old enough to walk—before, even—and yet I still cannot seem to coordinate myself long enough to shoot an arrow at the thing I mean to hit.”

“Well, I… I won’t tell the others,” Nalyn promised, but Callania just shrugged.

“I do not mind if they find out. The Collector chose me for a reason, and I am fairly certain that the reason was not my aim. The best I can do is keep my eyes peeled and my mind open, and I am sure the time will come when I understand why I am here with you.”

Nalyn fell silent.

“My mother taught me to fight,” she offered at length. “My father was… I never met him. He died before I was born.”

“He’d be proud, I think.”

That was a new thought, and an unexpected one. All Nalyn could do was smile shyly at Callania, the gratitude somehow stuck in her throat, and reach out her hand. Callania reached out too, and laced their fingers together without a word.

----------------------------------------

Even with Bill slowing them down, by noon the next day they were well on their way to Kachi, but night fell some time before they saw the lights of the little town ahead of them. They kept going, however, knowing that an inn was within their reach, and that it would undoubtedly be more comfortable than another night camping. Additionally, no one would need to be on watch.

As they grew closer, Nalyn heard chattering coming from the jungle around them, but she couldn’t make out where it was coming from. Sure, it was dark, but there didn’t seem to even be any motion or indication where the chattering was coming from. She shivered, and walked a little closer to Callania. She was glad when they made it to Kachi.

It really was a little nothing sort of town, set out in the middle of nowhere and consisting of little more than a few rundown cottages set around a central “main street” with an inn, a general store, and a doctor’s office. Nalyn sized it up immediately: you could get a meal and a room for the night, but unless you were particularly enamored of solitude and isolation, you would not want to spend longer than that here.

The party headed directly for the inn for two reasons: first, that they were tired and road-weary, and wanted a place to put down their belongings and rest; second, that there was almost literally no other place to go.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“How long are we going to stay here, do you think?” Elion asked.

“Long enough to wash the dust from our feet, and no more, I’d say,” Torbek told him, looking around at the others to see if they agreed. It was, perhaps, one of the first things they had agreed on as a party. Kachi was hardly anyone’s idea of a top holiday destination.

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Two rooms, six evening meals, and eight hours later, the party were ready to move on. Before leaving Kachi though, they visited the village’s sole store and replenished their supplies.

“Where are you good folk off to?” the shopkeeper asked as he packaged their purchases. Nalyn, having been wordlessly elected as spokesperson, answered for them. “We are on a quest to find something.” It wouldn’t do to give away too much, after all. They already had to split their earnings six ways. If someone got wind of what they were looking for and beat them to it? Then all of this would have been for nothing.

The fact that Roger had known they were looking for the grimoire didn’t really worry her. She had a feeling he wouldn’t be leaving Merthy Wood any time soon, and even if he did, he’d probably forget why he’d left before he got more than an hour’s march away.

The morning sun felt good on Nalyn’s skin, but once they plunged into the jungle, a thick canopy of leaves blocked most of the warmth. There was enough light to make out the path in front of them, and that was all.

“Do you hear that?” she heard Bill asking Sestra.

“Your huffing and puffing? It’s all I can hear,” she griped. “Seriously, how out of shape are you?”

“Well at least I’m not short!” he snapped back.

“Quiet, the pair of you!” Torbek had stopped in his tracks, looking around. Taking a cue from him, Nalyn looked around too, but didn’t see anything. “I could hear something, until it was obscured by your bickering.”

All six of them paused there on the path and listened in silence. The chattering was back, louder this time.

“Frogmen,” Bill whispered, his eyes wide. “I’ve heard of them, but I thought they were just a myth.”

“More tales from Mummy?” Sestra needled him, poking him in the side.

“Tell us what you know, and quickly,” Nalyn said.

“Just that they’re supposed to live around here, and that they’re little and kind of mean,” Bill said. “My mum always used to tell me if I was naughty, she’d bring me out here and leave me to the frogmen.”

Sestra stifled a snigger at this pronouncement, but Callania elbowed her.

“Are they dangerous?” Elion wanted to know.

“I don’t know… I mean, up until we got this far into the jungle, I thought they were something Mum made up to frighten me,” Bill said, his voice getting more and more high pitched as he began to panic—and all the while, the chattering was getting louder.

“Oh, is little diddums frightened?” Sestra scoffed. “Mama’s precious boy needs a blankie—!” She cut her own snide remarks off abruptly by squealing. Five heads turned as one to see Sestra being dragged off the path by two figures a little smaller than she was. She fought valiantly, but one of them had their hand over her mouth, and the other had its arms around her waist, trapping her arms and making it impossible for her to defend herself.

“Sestra!” Bill exclaimed, tugging his wand from his waistband.

“Put it away, boy,” Torbek growled. Elion was less subtle—he simply hit the dirt at the sight of Bill’s wand and covered his face.

Bill spluttered at this display of lack of trust, but Callania was already acting. She made as if to reach for her bow, then apparently decided against it and charged the little people, punching one in the face and tugging Sestra into her arms.

There were more, though, and now Nalyn could see them more clearly. They were green, with little froggy faces. Bill had been right about this, at least: they were frogmen.

Their language was unintelligible. They weren’t speaking Nim, the common tongue of Nimrien, and they weren’t speaking Ilabesh, the language of dwarves, either. It was harsh and guttural, and nothing at all like the flowing waves of Ehvari. Nalyn was tapped out. She was no linguist.

“Gekak makamaka,” she heard distinctly, over and over.

“Gekak makamaka!”

“Gekak makamaka!”

Nalyn readied her axe. The frogmen surrounded them where they stood on the path. Bill cowered, his wand shaking in his hands, until Elion snatched it from him and stowed it safely in his own pocket.

“What are they saying, what are they saying?” Bill whined desperately.

“I think they’re saying Gekak makamaka,” Sestra supplied unhelpfully through gritted teeth.

“What does that mean?”

“No one knows and we’re a little busy right now,” Nalyn snapped. Back to back in a small circle, they faced the ever increasing horde of frogmen. One of them, a little louder than the others, stepped forward and held up a hand. Immediately the chattering stopped. Silence fell on the clearing.

“No come here,” the loudest frogman declared in broken Nim, pointing at the party.

“We were just passing through,” Nalyn said, stepping up to speak for the others.

“No pass through! Go around. Jungle for Gekak!” He threw his hands in the air, which was apparently some sort of signal, because as one the gathered horde of frogmen roared their response.

“Gekak makamaka!”

“What does that mean?” Bill whined again.

“Gekak makamaka mean for Gekak!” declared the spokesfrog. “Now you for Gekak. Come in jungle? Come to castle. Food for Gekak.”

“Who is Gekak?” Bill whimpered.

“Gekak king,” the spokesfrog informed him.

“I am food for no man,” Torbek roared, swinging his sword above his head.

“You food Gekak makamaka,” said the spokesfrog, waving his hands again. The horde advanced on them, and Torbek spun into action.

With one swing, he sliced through the front line of frogmen, which was unfortunately a mere drop in what was now a very angry bucket. The horde charged, and the party readied themselves.

Nalyn swung her axe back and forth, taking out at least three or four frogmen with her first three swipes, until they got wise and began to duck. Callania finally pulled out her bow. even as distracted as she was, Nalyn watched all five of Callania’s shots. The first two plunged into trees, and Nalyn herself barely ducked the third, but the fourth and fifth buried themselves in the chests of frogmen. She wanted to cheer, but there was no way to tell if they’d actually hit their intended mark, or if they’d been incredible flukes.

Sestra, for her part, looked like a little whirling dervish with her two daggers, one in each hand. If Nalyn had to guess, she would have said Sestra felt embarrassed about having been grabbed—or about the sound that she’d let out while being grabbed.

Even Elion was doing his best. Staying safely behind Torbek he was strumming furiously, the soft pink light bathing Torbek and somehow making him swing faster.

And Bill cowered in the middle of the path, completely useless, his wand safely in Elion’s pocket.

Bill was the first to be taken captive, completely out in the open and undefended as he was. Nalyn tried to help him, but she couldn’t get anywhere near him.

Callania fell next, literally fell, under a wave of frogs. “No!” Nalyn screamed. The frogmen roared in triumph—at her distress? They trussed up the willowy elf as securely as they had tied Bill.

Nalyn fought all the harder. She swung low, to account for their ducking. Swung high when they got wise to that and tried jumping. Swung everywhere. She refused to let there be any escape from her axe, and from her wrath.

The spokesfrog picked up a large rock and crashed it down on Elion’s head, and he crumpled to the ground. He wasn’t unconscious, from what Nalyn could see, but he was certainly out of the fight, and his tightly tied form was dumped beside Bill and Callania. Torbek ran to his aid, and was caught in a net… leaving her and Sestra left to save them all.

And Sestra was so little, and doing her best, but there were too many of them.

Frog bodies littered the path by the dozens, but still there were enough frogmen to overpower the party, to take their weapons and bind them, and hoist them on the back of some of the bigger ones. Before long, they were being carried through the jungle, far off the beaten track.

----------------------------------------

It was pointless to struggle. They were small, but they were many, and as quickly as one was overpowered two were there to take its place. It was simpler to just to see what happened next, Nalyn thought, and deal with events as they unfolded.

Any time she tried to call out to Callania, or to try and work out a plan of attack with Torbek, the spokesfrog would snap at her not to speak, until finally she was gagged and unable to speak at all.

After being carried through the jungle for an indeterminate amount of time, the party was dumped unceremoniously in a clearing, almost literally in a heap. Above them loomed a castle, where the frogmen who were pouring in and out of it clearly lived.

“You wait. Gekak come.”

The party straightened themselves out, getting to their feet and attempting (with their bound hands) to straighten clothing that had ridden up in unfortunate places while being carried. Callania, stepping in close, gently tugged the foul tasting gag away from Nalyn’s mouth with her teeth, and took her hand comfortingly.

“Are you crying?” Sestra hissed incredulously at Bill.

“No! I’m just… allergic to frogs,” Bill sniffled, turning his head to try to wipe his eyes on the shoulder of his tunic. “Can I have my wand back please? I could untie us, and…”

“Shut up about your wand,” Elion said, eyeing the frogmen, who seemed to be gearing up for Gekak’s arrival.

“But I—”

“Shut. UP,” Elion hissed. Nalyn could see him wincing with every motion. The spokesfrog’s rock had struck him rather more than a glancing blow, from the look of things. At the back of his head, his curly brown hair was dark and matted with blood.

Bill had opened his mouth to say something else, but shut it abruptly. A silence had fallen over the frogmen.

“Gekak makamaka…” The chant started low, almost a murmur, but rose steadily until the assembled frogmen were roaring the words, over and over, at the top of their lungs. Nalyn would have covered her ears if her hands hadn’t been bound behind her back. The crowd parted, and a figure stepped into the clearing.

Torbek barely stifled a laugh.

Gekak, if this was indeed Gekak, was not exactly an imposing figure. He was smaller than many of the frogmen, and from where Nalyn was standing didn’t look to be all that strong or smart. His back looked crooked, at least if the awkward way he was standing was any indication, and she would have sworn that one of his legs was shorter than the other. As he stumped toward them, his lopsided legs made his gait uneven, so that he looked like he was bobbing up and down as he walked—a fact which did not exactly demand more respect. Possibly his eyes were a little “googlier” than the rest of the frogmen, but really, what was googlier, in a sea of googly, bulging eyes?

“Truly? That is Gekak?” Callania whispered.

Nalyn nodded and shot her a grin. “Rather anticlimactic, after all the ceremony, don’t you think?”

“No talk!” demanded the spokesfrog for the umpteenth time. “Only Gekak talk.”

Gekak weaved up to the party, bound as they were, and poked Sestra in the chest. She literally growled, baring her teeth at him, and struggled against her bonds.

“Eat first,” Gekak pronounced in an oddly high-pitched, reedy sort of voice, and now Nalyn had to try to stop herself from laughing.

Gekak tottered around the group, scrutinizing them carefully. “Eat next,” he said, poking Torbek in the chest. “Nice fat dwarf.”

“Who are you calling fat, frog?” Torbek snarled.

“No talk!” the spokesfrog barked at him. From his loincloth he pulled a curved knife and brandished it, feinting slashing at Torbek’s neck.

“Nice fat dwarf.” Gekak had decided to respond to Torbek directly, his voice gurgling with mirth. “What do, dwarf? Big angry words, but rope hands. My people many. Now you Gekak makamaka.”

As one, the assembled frogmen roared their leader’s words back at him.

“Now let’s be reasonable,” Nalyn said. Among her people she had been known as “the diplomatic one” and maybe that was why she had been chosen to be part of this group of blustering windbags and mouthy little mischief makers. “We have done nothing wrong. We do, of course, apologize for intruding on your land, Gekak, but this was not our intention. I also appreciate that ignorance of the law is no excuse. I therefore beg for clemency in this instance. Let us go, and we will leave and not bother you any further.”

There was a pause as Gekak’s protruding eyes goggled even further.

“What ugly one say?” he croaked finally, clearly baffled. The spokesfrog began speaking rapidly to him in their guttural froggy language, evidently translating.

Nalyn’s stomach sank a little at being called “ugly one”, even without the irony of having those words spoken by Gekak: the ugliest creature she had thus far laid eyes on.

“No leave. Gekak eat,” Gekak pronounced. Then he went on to say something which sounded to Nalyn like “bapalakama kage ta dakamata. Tana, panahakata taka danataka.” In other words, complete gibberish as far as she and the others were concerned. All she knew was that whatever he had said, it did not bode well for her and the others.

The spokesfrog nodded sagely, and gestured to those frogmen who were closest to the party. Once again they were lifted, and this time carried toward the castle.

“No…” whimpered Bill, but the rest of the party were silent. Nalyn imagined that each one of them was bearing this new development as well as they were able—as much as she might like to have cried and whimpered the way Bill was, she knew she had to appear strong in front of the frogmen to have any chance of negotiating their freedom.

That was, of course, if frogmen were open to negotiation at all. The chances seemed to be growing increasingly slim…