If not for the cane, Yellowhat might have kept his mouth shut about the spineworms. The others were back at camp, embroiled in an endless argument.

Since the bee catastrophe, progress was painfully slow. There’d been one near-capsize when a bewildered snake fell from a branch into the boat. No one was bitten, but El Sha La had to stop Revel from slaying it, then spend stern words on Sters to convince the Hook he could not keep the brilliant green serpent as a pet. Instead, Sters coaxed the snake onto an oar blade and gently flopped it overboard.

Next, they came across another long stretch of rapids where they had to haul the canoe overland. Morale sank by the step. There was still a dreg of daylight left when they pitched their camp beside the western shore, but they could row no more. There would be no double watches tonight. Revel and Sters were both exhausted. It fell on Hat and El to gather the wood.

Soon, their campfire crackled toward the early stars. Sters the Hook took a stand before the blaze and warned El Sha La it was time to turn back. His arguments were gruff and direct. They’d lost most of their supplies, they were sunburned, stung, and sore.

Sters spoke of the beast at the basin, huge shadows he’d allegedly seen lope between the trees, and the eerie face in the swarm. He reminded them they could easily be rowing into an ambush. After the string of setbacks, their chances of catching Fish had slimmed to next-to-nothing. Sters opined the mariner and the thief were already dead and devoured. He was convinced if they continued, soon everyone in the canoe would be dead, too.

Though his rhetoric was rough, fear for his life lent Sters a certain desperate eloquence. The big man had chosen his moment well, without his strong arm, they would never catch Fish. Still, he found no leverage. El Sha La was prepared to go on without him.

Left behind, Sters would get eaten before he had a chance to starve himself. Sters doubled down, but the sorceress would not bend, she was hell-bent on rowing ahead. Revel stuck his big, stupid nose into everything. It would never resolve, yet they blathered on endlessly.

Tonight, Yellowhat’s high was unusually persistent. He mused it might be a happy accident of interaction with the bee venom. Before the bickering could bring him down, he slipped away and bumbled upriver with a head full of wisps.

A way upstream, he spotted an old Sektar standing stone. The obelisk was half-swallowed by moss. Yellowhat was almost as faded as the ancient lines in the stone, but he could make out three of the ring runes. CALAMITY, ETERNITY, and PRISON. The whole world seemed to shudder around them.

“Sounds like fun,” Hat burbled to himself. The standing stone was meant to be a warning, but it hadn’t helped the Sektar. They and all their cities had vanished, long before Lhazza Lha founded his little town. Yellowhat peered at the monolith, so high he could almost feel the years turn. He tried to remember the voice in the swarm.

Yellowhat had lied to El Sha La about the voice, of course, and profaned the holy moment into a stupid joke. It was impossible to explain. As the day wore on, he’d begun to believe his own deceit. Now, he was alone and could admit the truth to himself. But what was it?

What had she said?

Yellowhat closed his eyes and willed himself back to the bow. A chorus of ten thousand wings sung around him like tiny bells. As the swarm trilled in his ears, a voice whispered, Come-again, young-again. The whisperer was distant as the stars themselves.

As he slipped into a trance, she spoke to Yellowhat directly. It was like drowning. Her song washed over him and overwhelmed his senses. Her words were icebergs, a terrible depth loomed beneath every word. Overwhelmed, he begged the bees to stop. Hat was too cracked, too tiny to contain this abundance.

The singer would not relent. Her insect orchestra howled around him, the song sinking into his skin and settling into his bones. He felt himself plucked, uprooted from his course, and cast into some new direction. The swarm coursed with color, and his eyes swam with visions.

In terror, Yellowhat beheld a mountain rise until it stabbed the night sky and broke through the moon. An obsidian heart turned above a bed of embers, like a hare on a spit. A shapeless hat unspun itself and cast out its yellow lines like a fisherman’s net and ensnared his companions. Steps thundered; a horned shadow approached. Hat stood alone between his friends and the beast. A sword sang in his hand. Unmanned, he turned and ran. At once, the vision unwove, and the swarm set upon him.

It was not the answer she’d wanted.

As he was stung again and again, Hat relished each barb. He was unworthy. He deserved this. After the washout, she was gone. Hat was no stranger to hallucinations; they usually didn’t last past the next smoke. This one remained.

Who was she?

The standing stone swam before his eyes. Hat hummed a tune and tried to tie the visions to it. They would fade like a dream when the smoke was done. Was that why the high was so prolonged? Had she drawn him here, to offer him a deal?

The moon rose over the lonesome wood. Deeper in the hollow, a wolf bayed. Others joined their voices to the howl.

Hair stood on the back of Yellowhat’s neck. How foolish to venture out alone! And how disappointed the wolves would be in such a stringy, unsatisfying meal.

Eager not to disappoint in his final performance, Hat turned and crept back toward camp, silent as he could. Eyes down to avoid treading on a branch, a pattern caught Hat’s eye. In the moonlight, thin black lines stood out against the stone underfoot, radiating from a dark mound. Stopping to focus, Hat recognized the lines. Spineworms, burning up as they crawled away from a fire.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Forgetting the wolves, he sifted through the mound with his hands and found blackened fish bones. Caned out of his mind, he’d somehow stumbled across the trail of the two fugitives.

A wiser man would have kept silent in hopes the others would give up and turn back. But smoke made Hat sloppy and glib. He found his way back to camp, and the others wanted to know why he was so filthy. Hat blabbed.

El Sha La summoned an orb of silvery light. Yellowhat led the others to the standing stone first. He hoped the others might have a vision, too, but to them it was only an old rock.

He asked El Sha La to confirm his translation, and she looked at him strangely. With a lurch, he realized she didn’t even know the ring runes were a language. She tried to play it off, but Hat wasn’t fooled. Hopeless! How could a sorceress not know about the Sektar? Had Arath not taught her, or was she simply a poor pupil? Hat revised his estimation of El Sha La. Perhaps he could make off with the cane and escape after all.

He brought them to the remains of the fire. In the arcane light, it was clear this was a campsite. El Sha La bent low to look at the charred lines. Her eyes glowed with prismatic light.

“Is this a ward?” El Sha La wondered.

“That’s not magic. Those are spineworms,” Hat informed her. He was coming down hard, and everything grated on him.

“What are those?”

Hat paused, expecting Sters or Revel to pipe up and answer. But neither knew. Yellowhat was mortified by their ignorance. He explained the worms made fish inedible and must be burned, lest they infect others. His companions were repulsed.

Yellowhat could only shake his head at the oppidan dopes. Sters was just a wharf rat, but the shants should know better. El Sha La and Revel hadn’t even brought fishing poles. Four people and no poles, what folly! Yellowhat was twice the fool for following them. They found no more clues and returned to their own camp. Weary as he was, he struggled to sleep. What a fool he was for that early puff!

When El Sha la woke him for his watch, Hat trembled with want. He begged her for cane, and she refused. Bitter as willow bark, Hat could barely keep from screaming. He hunted about for a bee in hopes a sting might bring the smoke back, but they were all asleep. The watch passed in pure misery.

When morning came, Yellowhat was surprised to find Sters was still there. He’d figured the big man would abandon them and take his chances on foot, but Sters looked worse than Hat felt. On his watch, Sters heard shrill voices call across the river to each other. He could not say what they were, only that they were numerous and inhuman. He insisted they weren’t wolves.

Revel was skeptical. He said he’d heard nothing of the sort on his watch. El Sha La considered what he said, shook her head, and said they still had to go on. Yellowhat watched Sters’ eyes. He couldn’t say if the big man lied. He suspected not. Sters’ eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his voice was thick with conviction.

Breakfast was sodden hardtack and unripe blackberries. The river remained rough. Another long stretch of rapids, and the riverside was a tangled bramble. They had to hack their way through. At least the load was lighter for the baggage they’d lost.

Revel’s shield and most of their rations were swept away, but Yellowhat did not miss them. All he wanted was in El Sha La’s robe. Revel, El, and Sters still had their packs. There would be lean times ahead, especially if they wound up with two prisoners in tow.

The prospect of a long day rowing on half rations had everyone in a terrible mood. Yellowhat decided to do something about it. As they rowed, he kept his eyes on the riverbank and searched for a good tree.

At midday, they landed on the eastern bank for a depressing lunch of nuts and soggy biscuits. While the others chewed and grumbled, Yellowhat saw a stream of crimson petals drift past on the Rakkar. Intrigued, he wandered up the river to seek the source. Revel yelled after him not to wander off again, but Hat pretended not to hear. El Sha La and Sters seemed happy for any excuse to rest.

The petals issued from a small stream that trickled into the Rakkar. Yellowhat followed into the woods and found a venerable red myrtle with drooping boughs draped over a pool teeming with frogs. Myrtle wood was flexible and strong, perfect for a pole.

He had no knife but managed to find a wedge-shaped stone to serve as a crude ax. Hat stripped off a switch and hurried back to the canoe. Everyone was waiting for him.

Despite Hat’s best efforts, conversation foundered as they toiled upriver. The sorceress’s party were accomplices not companions. The other rowers scowled when he tried to rouse them. At last, he turned back to the stern in defeat. The others were lost in a private accounting of the errors that had landed them in this predicament. Yellowhat understood completely.

Besides his shapeless namesake and his cane pipe, Yellowhat’s only possession was his fishing hook. He kept his hook in his shirt pocket, jabbed into a bit of cork with line wound around it. Hat had tried to hock the hook for a dreg-puff a dozen times, but no one would oblige. It was bad luck to take a man’s last hook.

When he couldn’t scrounge money for cane or a drink, Yellowhat would go fishing from the docks with the other wastrels. He was never any good at it. Hat would get embroiled in an argument, or swept up in some tale of woe, and miss every bite.

It never bothered him.

In the evening, they would pass around a jug and sing hobo songs and tavern ballads. That was the thing. Singing was free.

At last, they got off the river and made camp. Hat borrowed Sters’ knife and whittled the myrtle switch into a halfway-decent rod. Revel scoffed at Hat’s trembling hands and told him he was wasting his time.

Ignoring him, Hat took his pole and set out to fish before El gave him his cane ration. He would be useless after. Sadly, the oaf was right. Hat’s hands trembled with need and frightened off all the fish. Revel laughed when Hat returned to camp empty-handed.

Fuckin’ shant.

Hat took blessed solace in his smoke and didn't even mind when El Sha La shook him awake for watch. The stars were out, the cane painting them across the sky in blurred serpents. Hat heard the high tittering across the river and wondered if they were being followed by some savage tribe. He shrugged and didn’t bother to wake the others. If they died, they died. Not long after, a scream roared across the Rakkar. Everyone woke.

It was deeper than a cougar’s scream, louder than a lion. The call did not repeat, and the high voices were silent after. Hat was caned enough to suggest they ought to row over and investigate. He was eager for a glimpse of the fabulous beast.

His proposal was swiftly vetoed, and there was some talk of whether Hat was fit to stand watch alone. The others drew straws, and Hat was forced to sit up with insufferable Revel for the rest of his shift.

Alas!

A nightmare of Revel’s smug smirk woke Yellowhat well before dawn, and he resolved to try his luck on the river again. He sidled up the shore, baited his hook with a tiny blue crayfish, and fought to focus through the cane-fog. He failed.

When the sun rose, he pulled up his line and found something had robbed his hook and escaped. Yellowhat could only shrug. Fish bit or they didn’t. If one had stolen his bait, well…it wasn't like he'd never stolen anything.

Back at camp, Revel was absurdly chipper, swooping his sword about in some stupid drill. He stopped mid-stroke to sneer at Hapless Hat the Hopeless Angler. For the rest of the day, Yellowhat eyed every plant in search of something to poison him with.