Bauru didn't look back.

Behind him, roots shrieked and snapped, tearing stone and bark with the force of a god's tantrum. Vines coiled like living ropes, hungry and writhing, but he focused only on the ground ahead the slope, the slick path, the narrow footing down the mountain's face. Mud sucked at their boots, and somewhere behind them, Stronric was gone.

"Move!" he snarled, shoving Lirian forward. "Ye stop and I'll throw ye down the path myself!"

The party was disordered, frantic. Serene stumbled on a root and Dane caught her. Giles cursed and shoved at vines with his shield. Kara glided like a shadow, untouched, but Bauru's eyes were only for Rugiel.

She hadn't screamed when it happened, not aloud. Her silence and the look on her face burrow into his mind. When the roots coiled around Stronric's legs and yanked him below, that silent snarl of grief had etched itself into Bauru's bones. She'd tried to leap in after him. It had taken all of Dane's strength and Serene's magic to hold her back.

Now she moved with the others but not like them. She wasn't running to flee. She was stalking. Eyes blazing, blood-slick warhammer slung over her shoulder, and Stronric's axe gripped white-knuckled in her other hand. It glowed faintly with his fire, as if reluctant to leave her untouched.

"He's gone!" Giles shouted. "We need to regroup, this isn't a retreat, this is survival!"

Rugiel turned her head slowly, murder flickering behind her eyes. "He is not gone, boy. He is buried. There's a difference."

Bauru bit back the impulse to bark at them both. Instead, he motioned toward a break in the jungle below, a narrow ridge jutting from the slope, framed by a fallen tree like a half-formed arch.

"There!" Bauru called. "We regroup down there! Go!"

They broke through the choking vines and slid down the hill's steep flank. Mud splashed and the twigs tore at their skin. The stench of rotting vegetation choked every breath. Bauru took the lead, carving a way forward with his machete, eyes darting for movement to the shadows behind the trunks, and to the unnatural stillness in the canopy above.

They burst into the clearing, if it could be called that. It was just slightly drier than the rest of the jungle, ringed by shallow roots and fungal growths. Thankfully the vines couldn't reach here at least not easily. For now, it would have to do.

"Where's Armand?" Lirian asked suddenly, voice tight.

Everyone paused, their eyes darting around the party. There was no gleam of silver armor nor noble oaths rising over the din.

"He was behind me," Serene said quietly. "I thought he was…"

"He's not here," Bauru said flatly, his stomach sinking. "He didn't make it to the clearing."

A sick silence fell over them.

Rugiel's voice was like gravel. "We go back for them. Stronric and the knight."

Kara said nothing. She didn't even flinch

Bauru spun looking over the party with his weapon ready.

"Everyone still breathin'?" Bauru questioned.

Dane nodded, helping Serene settle on a half-dry log. Lirian was panting, already checking his knives. Giles wiped at his brow with a trembling hand. Kara stood still, watching Rugiel.

Rugiel hadn't moved.

She stood at the edge of the clearing, staring back up the slope they'd come from. The jungle groaned behind her, the roots still slithering in the muck. Suddenly she dropped to her knees with a thud. She wasn't praying or crying. No, she knelt rigid in the muck the picture of contained fury. Blue flames erupted to life on the two weapons she held and slowly trailed up the shafts pooling in blazing fires around her hands. A single tear cleared the way down her grime covered face.

Bauru took a step toward her but paused. With a mighty arch she drove the weapons down into the mud before her, extinguished their flames and looked down at her open hands containing a flicker of blue flames. Her lips moved, whispering something he couldn't hear as she sat trembling watching the small flame.

Then she screamed.

A sound that cracked like steel snapping in a forge. Pure grief, pure rage and the Flames of Morgal ignited, erupting out in a sphere that caused those closest to step back. Just as quickly as they came, the flames dwindled back down into her palms.

"He trusted us! He trusted me! And we left him!" She said raggedly.

She surged up, ripped the axe from the mud, slamming it into a nearby root. The blade bit deep and stuck. She wrenched it free and struck again.

And again.

And again.

Bauru stepped closer, not to stop her. Just to be near her. So she knew she was not alone.

"We had no choice," Serene said gently behind him. "We couldn't…"

Rugiel rounded on her, face red, muttonchops bristling like a lioness' mane. "You think I care about excuses?"

Dane took a half-step forward, but Bauru raised a hand.

"Let her rage," he said, voice low. "Let her mourn."

She threw the axe aside, Stronric's axe, and sank to the ground again, breathing hard.

Silence fell, broken only by the creaking groan of distant roots.

Bauru walked over, crouched beside her. "He ain't dead," Bauru said softly.

She didn't respond.

"Ye know our brother," he continued. "Ye know how hard it is to kill him. He's still down there, under all that cursed vine and rot. He's breathin'. Bleedin', maybe. But not gone."

Finally, Rugiel looked at with red eyes and her jaw set.

"I know he's not dead. It's just…" she rasped, voice thinning into silence.

Bauru looked out at the jungle.

The trees swayed gently in the windless air, creaking like old bones. Somewhere out there, Stronric was buried—fighting, surviving, waiting. And Rugiel was still staring at the dirt like it might hold an answer.

"I should've known," she said suddenly, her voice low and thick. "The ground was too quiet, too still. He felt it. I saw it on his face." She said quietly.

Bauru said nothing.

She picked at the mud on her gauntlet. Her hands weren't trembling anymore, her flames gone. Now they were still, too still.

"I know he's not dead. It's just…" she rasped, voice thinning into silence. "It's always him," she said finally. "Charging in or bearing the weight and holding the line." Her fingers clenched the haft of his axe. "I swore I'd stand beside him. Not behind him, not again." She shook her head, bitter and low. "But I keep watching his back disappear into the fight, and I let him do it every time. I swore I'd never stand behind him again. Never make him carry the weight alone."

Bauru shifted slightly but said nothing. He knew better than to interrupt a confession forged in shame.

"And yet here I am," she said bitterly. "Alive, axe in hand and he's buried."

She picked up Stronric's axe from where it lay in the muck. Looked at it like it was judging her.

"I was supposed to protect him. But I let him fall. Again." Rugiel whispered.

The party had fallen silent, no one knowing what to do or say. Bauru finally spoke. "Rugiel, how are you supposed to protect him? This is Stronric we are speaking about."

Rugiel looked at him, anger flickering behind her eyes.

"He chose," Bauru said. "Like always. Ye think he screamed for help? Ye think he wanted us to dive in after him and get wrapped up too?"

She didn't answer.

"He chose, Rugiel. He chose to buy us time. He chose to face what we couldn't. He chose to trust that we'd keep movin' because that's what he taught us to do." Bauru said his own anger at Stronric's actions biting into his words.

He tapped the haft of his crossbow gently against the ground.

"Ye didn't fail him. Ye honored him. By gettin' us out. And now we get to repay that." Bauru said, his anger shifting to approval as he looked at his sister.

Rugiel exhaled slowly through her nose. Not quite a sigh, more like pressure releasing from a furnace.

She looked down at the axe again.

"I hate that he's always right," she said quietly.

Bauru almost smiled. "Aye. Bastard's got a talent for it."

Rugiel nodded, just once. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.

"Then let's do it right," she said. "Let's get down this cursed mountain. Let's find him."

Bauru stood. "That's the plan."

The heat didn't let up. Even in the shadows of the canopy, the jungle clung to their skin like wet rags. Every breath tasted of rot and old water. Mosquitoes the size of coins buzzed around their heads, and in the distance, something let out a guttural trill that made Dane's hand clench. Bauru moved ahead of the group, machete dagger in one hand and the other brushing against the low-hanging ferns as he searched for signs of passage. He wasn't looking for a path, he was looking for a threat.

They were being followed. The vines couldn't come this far and what stocked them was to finessed to be one of the primitive abominations they've encountered. This was something else entirely, something lighter, a faster hunter.

"Eyes up," Bauru muttered, half-turning his head. "Somethin's trackin' us."

"How can you tell?" Giles asked sharply, searching the trees around them.

Bauru flicked him a look. "Because I can feel it, trees don't go silent for no reason."

The party froze again, the silence highlighted. The sounds of the forest had stopped. The insects, frogs and birds all stopped, not a single creature moved. Rugiel had taken the rear, still silent, still holding Stronric's axe. She didn't even flinch at the silence, she only gripped the weapon tighter. Kara moved like she'd been born to the swamp, barely making a sound. Bauru didn't trust that one, not anymore.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

They reached a narrow channel of knee-deep water with a half-sunken log bridge rotting across it. Just as Dane moved to cross… The log moved.

"Back!" Bauru shouted, raising his crossbow.

A shape exploded from the muck—long and scaled, with too many limbs, claws curled back like sickles, a face stretched into a permanent grin of bone and moss. A corrupted swamp drake, spines rising from its back like a crown of antlers. Another one burst from the water to their left. Then a third, this one leaping from the trees above with a guttural screech.

"Form up!" Bauru roared, voice raw but clear.

Dane slammed his shield into the first one's jaws, knocking it back. Serene drew her staff, channeling a flicker of energy that crackled like fireflies between her fingers. Lirian was gone from sight already vanished into the underbrush.

Bauru raised Predator and fired. The bolt slammed through the eye of the drake that leapt from above, driving it back into the muck with a wet crunch.

"Kara!" he barked. "Help the left side!"

She didn't respond. She was staring at the creatures with a strange intensity, not fear but interest. Then she lifted her hand. The water near her feet churned and froze but not cleanly. The water blackened and turned to jagged slush. A half-solid mix of rot and ice that seized the nearest drake by its limbs and held it as if the swamp itself had turned against it. The creature screeched, biting its own leg off to escape.

Bauru grimaced. "That ain't normal ice."

Meanwhile, Rugiel had waded into the thick of it.

Rugiel met the largest drake head-on, hammer in one hand, Stronric's axe in the other. She didn't fight like herself. She fought like Stronric. She charged forward, shouting, slamming her weapons down like anvils on skulls. The glowing axe sang with blue flame as it split bone and boiled swamp water.

For a moment, it looked like she was him.

Bauru blinked swamp muck from his one good eye and shot another bolt, pinning a drake through the chest to a half-sunken tree trunk. It thrashed and fell still.

Then Giles let out a sharp yell. He'd tripped over a root and fallen face-first into the mud. A drake turned toward him.

"Giles, move!" Dane shouted.

Giles didn't move.

Kara did.

She lifted her hand again, and this time the air shimmered not with frost, but with crystals. They were sharp and jagged, unnatural. They pierced the drake mid-lunge and drove it into the dirt like spears from a glass storm.

Giles blinked up at her, panting. "That… that wasn't ice."

Kara smiled faintly. "No. It wasn't."

Bauru watched the exchange with narrowed eyes. The fight ended as quickly as it began. The final drake slumped into the water, steam hissing from its body where Rugiel had burned it through. For a long moment, no one spoke.

Then Giles broke the silence, still kneeling in the muck. "This place…" he said slowly, "It only wants blood. And it doesn't care whose."

Kara placed a hand on his shoulder. "Now you understand."

Bauru turned away, jaw tight. That wasn't understanding, that was infection.

He scanned the treeline again. And that's when he saw it — The last drake twitched once, then lay still.

No one cheered. No one spoke.

They dragged the bodies off the trail and took a moment to breath and drink. They took the limited time to scrape muck off their blades and wipe blood from armor.

No one asked if they were going back for Stronric.

They all knew the answer.

Bauru turned his eye downhill and motioned with his head. "We move. Before this swamp decides it's hungry again."

They followed, one by one, the sound of boots squelching in the muck. The fight hadn't shaken them all the same, some looked wary. While others looked changed and the jungle, as always, watched in silence.

They moved single file now, slipping between vines and over ridges slick with moss and ash. What had once been forest floor was giving way to something worse. Bog rot, the kind that sucked at boots like a hungry mouth and stank of old blood and sulfur. The jungle floor was alive, and not in the good way. Bauru led, as always, machete in hand. He barely spoke, not from weariness, but focus. His ears were tuned to the branches, his one eye flicking left and right. Every broken twig might be a signal. Every wrong scent was a warning.

Behind him, Rugiel trudged without complaint. Her armor bore streaks of sap, blood, and swamp water. She carried both weapons again, but her expression had settled. The grief still burned, but it had hardened—tempered like steel pulled from the forge. Serene and Dane were quietly talking. Just load enough to hear over their soft footsteps while they watched each other's backs. Serene still favored her ankle, but Dane stayed near her, sword out, his shield strapped tight. He didn't complain, he just endured.

Lirian darted between cover, always on the edge of sight, scouting with that twitchy confidence of his. He hadn't said much since the ambush, but Bauru could see the edge in his movements. The rogue was rattled. That meant they were all in danger. Giles walked somewhere in the middle, back tense, shield held wrong. He wasn't watching the jungle he was watching the group. He was watching Kara. And Kara?

She hadn't wiped the muck from her boots. Or the flecks of blackened ice from her fingertips. She just walked, gliding over roots, never stumbling. Like this place welcomed her.

They stopped at a half-collapsed stone arch, the remnants of an old boundary marker. Maybe once it was a wall, or a trail gate, but now it was moss-covered and crumbling. Bauru raised a fist and everyone stopped.

"This'll do," he muttered. "We rest here. Quiet like. One hour."

They dropped where they stood.

Rugiel planted both weapons in the dirt and leaned against them, eyes closed. Dane helped Serene ease down beside the largest rock. Lirian disappeared again probably climbing trees, watching the trail behind them. Kara remained standing, arms folded, staring into the bog.

Bauru took a moment to crouch and inspect the mud. No drake tracks. No roots curling this far down but something was watching. He felt it in his spine.

"You see how she fights now?" Giles's voice cut through the stillness. Not loud, but pointed. "Rugiel, I mean."

Bauru turned his head slightly. Giles was standing just outside of reach. Always just outside of reach.

"She fights like him," Giles said. "Like she's trying to wear his skin."

Bauru didn't answer.

"You think that's noble?" Giles went on. "She's not leading. She's imitating. Pretending she's strong enough to take his place."

Bauru stood up.

"Ye done?" he asked.

Giles smiled, thin-lipped. "Just saying what no one else will."

"You think yer speakin' truth," Bauru said slowly. " That aint gonna protect ye teeth when I smack ye. Stronric trained her, fought beside her. He trusted her. If ye don't, that says more about you than her."

"She left him behind." Giles hissed.

"No," Bauru snapped, his voice finally rising. "You left him. Ye ran. She had to be dragged."

Giles's eyes darkened, but he didn't reply.

Serene looked up from her seat beside Dane. "Enough," she said. "We're not doing this. Not now."

Kara stepped forward, calm as ever.

"You're all still clinging to a corpse," she said. "That kind of sentiment gets people killed."

Bauru turned on her. "What make ye think hes dead?"

"I think you're blinded," she said. "You're dragging everyone into the mud chasing a ghost. He chose to fall. You should've chosen to move on. See my lord I told you these slaves." Kara's white teeth seemed to flash as a crooked smile crossed her face. " I mean honored dwarves, are just so foolish. With out their little lord they start to bumble around."

For a moment, Bauru's hand twitched toward his crossbow.

But then Rugiel opened her eyes.

Her voice was soft. "Bauru, don't. She's not worth it."

Kara tilted her head.

"You sure of that?" Kara cooed.

Rugiel straightened. "Aye, Bauru could cut you down before you had a chance to react. Stronric is alive, it's just that simple."

Kara licked one of her canine teeth with her tongue and looked Rugiel up and down. "That's not proof," Kara said.

"No," Rugiel agreed. "It's faith."

The group fell silent.

Even the jungle seemed to pause.

Then Lirian dropped down from a tree, breath shallow. "Three more drakes, maybe four. Stalking us from the ridge."

Bauru cursed. "They're doggin' our trail."

"Can we outrun them?" Serene asked.

"Not with your ankle," Lirian said. "Unless Dane was able to carry you."

"No," Bauru said. "We lead 'em."

He pointed downhill, where the swamp dipped into a long marsh path. "We bait 'em into that ravine. Trap 'em between the rocks and use the slope against 'em."

Giles scoffed. "Who died and made you the leader dwarf? What makes you think we are gonna do your little plan??"

"Me," Rugiel said as she stood and sized up Giles "We are."

She picked up Stronric's axe and slung it over her shoulder. For a moment, the faintest glow traced along the edge.

"Then we finish this," Bauru said. "And we keep movin'. Until we find 'im. Or this whole mountain burns tryin' to stop us."

He turned away before Kara could speak again, because if she did, he might not let her finish.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.