Page 3 of X'nath

Suddenly, my weasel partner halted beside me, his fur bristling. He crouched low, staring intently at a thicket. “What is it, Yargol?” I whispered, dropping to one knee beside him.

A pair of glowing eyes blinked slowly from the underbrush, almost lazily. My heart raced. “What the?—”

Before I could finish, a massive creature emerged: a bloated frog the size of an orc, its mottled skin glistening with a layerof swamp slime. It croaked loudly, the sound reverberating through the trees like a death knell.

“By the ancestors, that thing’s ugly as a bog orc!” Greag exclaimed, recoiling. “Is it going to eat us or just sit there and give us nightmares?”

“It might be a guardian of the swamp!” Karg croaked, readjusting his grip on his weapon, unsure if it was an enemy.

The frog blinked again, and with a mighty heave, it let out a loud belch that sent a cloud of fetid gas wafting our way. The stench was overpowering, thick with rot and decay.

“Great! Just what we needed—an ogre-sized toad with the breath of a troll,” I muttered, waving my hand in front of my nose. “Let’s keep moving before it decides we look tasty.”

As we trudged on, the swamp began to come alive with bizarre noises: distant whispers that sounded almost like laughter, rustling branches that felt far too deliberate, and the splashes of something large moving just out of sight.

A piercing scream shattered the stillness. We froze, exchanging uncertain glances.

“Was that—” Karg began, but I cut him off, knowing he’d be better off taking a few more missions with the men before he spoke up on these matters.

“Just the wind,” I said with a calmness I didn’t feel. “Definitely not the sound of our impending doom.”

Greag rolled his eyes and let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Right. Just wind. And I’m sure that’s not a headless spirit following us.”

I shot him a glare, my patience thinning. "Shut it, Greag! Focus!" I snapped, trying to keep my bravado intact. "We’ve got a shipwreck to raid and pretty faces to charm. No ghostly interruptions!"

The headless spirit was a tale we’d all heard as children, spun by our elders to keep us in line. They said it roamed the swamps, a restless, decapitated figure that hunted down thosewho ventured too far from the clan. Of course, no one really believed it—not any of us, anyway—but it was always the first story to scare younglings into staying close to camp.

It was probably a deranged old female orc, one who’d lost her child and her sanity, doomed to wander the world alone, consumed by grief.

Greag had always loved to joke about the tale, and now, with the eerie howl still hanging in the air, I could feel the weight of those old stories creeping back into my mind. I forced myself to push it away, focusing on the task at hand. There was no time for ghosts or old tales. We had a shipwreck to loot, and I had no intention of letting anything, living or dead, stop us.

"We've got bigger things to worry about," I continued, trying to shake off the unease. "Like getting to that ship without tripping over our own feet or ending up in whatever foul mess lurks around here."

Greag raised an eyebrow, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You sure about that, X’nath? I mean, if the ghost of some old swamp dweller shows up, you could always try to charm it with that face of yours."

The others chuckled at Greag’s teasing, but I saw the flicker of unease in a few of their eyes. They may have been old enough to know better, but even the most battle-hardened orc wasn’t immune to a little superstition.

I clenched my fists and refocused. "We stay together, keep sharp, and get what’s ours. Nothing else matters."

The group shook off the tension as best they could, the sound of clanking weapons and boots crunching in the swamp mud filled the air once more. But as we pressed forward, the fog thickened, swirling around us like a living thing. Shadows danced between the trees, and the deeper we went, the more I felt the weight of unseen eyes upon us, crawling over my skin like insects.

Suddenly, Bolg let out a series of panicked squeaks, darting back toward us. “What now?” I growled, turning to face whatever horror had found us.

From the shadows, a twisted figure emerged—a crone, her skin sagging and her hair a wild mass of vines and moss. She cackled, her voice like brittle leaves crunching underfoot. "Lost, are we? Come to seek your fortune?"

A brief chill ran through me, a fleeting thought of an old legend, of the orc mother who lost her child. But I shook it off. This wasn’t some wandering spirit; just another crone of the swamp.

She leaned on her crooked staff, eyes glinting with malice. "Not here for treasure? Or maybe something... else?"

"We’re here for what we came for," I replied, trying to mask my unease. "Stay out of our way, old woman."

Her grin widened. "The swamp doesn’t give freely. It takes… and sometimes, it keeps what it wants."

I tightened my grip on my axe, the air thick with a sense of something darker. Whatever she was, she wasn’t just an old fool.

“Uh, no thanks,” I replied, taking a step back. There was something not right about her. “We’re just… passing through.”

“Passing through?” She leaned closer, eyes glinting with darkness. “You’ll find more than you bargained for in these woods. Care for a snack?” She held out a handful of what looked like rotting fruit, its flesh writhing with maggots.

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