Tochukwu called a meeting first thing in the morning. To Oak's relief, the subject matter had nothing to do with him or the battle with the giant crocodile. Sadia had finished enchanting her purification tool, which provided a welcome distraction from Oak's own peculiarities.

There wasn't a man, woman, or child in the entire caravan who didn't wish to avoid the runs. Dysentery was no laughing matter even in the best of times, but on the road? Oak would rather have the plague.

"All right! I will make this quick, cause we have a lot of ground to cover today, if we want to stay on schedule. As I am sure you all are aware by now, a spellsinger called Sadia Al-Sharekh, joined our humble caravan when we passed by Kesh." Tochukwu pointed at Sadia who stood by his side in front of the gathered crowd, waving awkwardly at the mention of her name. "The lass has a way of purifying water and provisions, and from this day onwards, she is open for business. You want to avoid shitting yourself to death? Avail yourself of her services."

Tochukwu slapped his hands together hard enough to make the folk in the front row flinch. The man certainly knew how to capture people's attention.

"Now, I give these instructions every single time before I set off with a caravan, and every single time some of you cocksuckers ignore my advice." Tochukwu glared at the crowd like every single one of them had offended his sense of hygiene and good manners. "In about three days, we will reach the wetlands. Sadia here is a diligent girl, but this is a big caravan and she can't be everywhere at once. So, I will repeat myself one last time.

"You will boil your fucking water before you drink it! If I see you drinking swamp-water out of some fly infested pond, I will burn your wagon with you and your family inside it! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes!" the crowd answered, Oak among them. He felt the lingering need to shout 'No' just to see what would happen, but he stifled the impulse. The vein pulsing on Tochukwu's forehead might burst, and he didn't want that on his conscience.

***

The next three days passed swiftly. Oak was used to walking day after day, and that's what they did, with few breaks in between. It was a brutal undertaking for those who were yet to reach their physical prime and for those who had already sailed past theirs.

People were tired and quick to anger. Spouses exchanged harsh words over meaningless things, and many a child found out the hard way that their parents were not in the mood for backtalk or disobedience.

Oak watched it all from the outside, looking in, like a scholar of human behavior. His old man had never laid hands on him, and Oak was eternally glad for it. If his father had been the type to pull out his belt instead of talking things over, the darkness inside Oak's heart would have surely grown to such heights he would have lost himself completely during the war.

That fate was a ruin he didn't wish on his worst enemy. Still, Oak had to admit the lad who kicked over his family's cook-pot in a fit of rage might have earned the ire of his tired parents. Food on the road was rarely great, but marching without breakfast was an entirely different type of agony.

He doubted the welts on the boy's ass helped with his growling stomach.

When people who didn't know any better complained to Tochukwu about the pace, the caravan leader pointed at his calendar and said, "I intend to spend the winter back home with my wife and kids. If that means I need to walk you until you pass out, I will do so."

Any attempt to continue the line of conversation usually ended when Tochukwu told the complainant that if the caravan ran out of food before they made it to the city state of Mashkan-shapir, he would turn them into emergency provisions.

"I've never had to resort to such acts, but if you make me, then by God in Heaven, you will be the first man I eat!"

Such an easy-going fellow, our Tochukwu. I need to talk to him about filing his teeth. These poor bastards would piss themselves in fear.

In the evenings, Oak worked on his theurgy while Sadia delved into the secrets of diabolism. Kushim's Bewilderment, the thought-plague he had brought with him from Ma'aseh Merkavah, had yet to yield all its secrets. After countless evenings of study, Oak understood the makeup of most of the individual strings of memory, and how to construct similar strings for his own purposes, but the way the intricate webs fit together made no sense to him.

The strings themselves felt far too simple to be the building blocks of such a viciously efficient thought-plague. Oak's own wards were reasonably robust, even if he had built them to repel trauma-based attacks first and other threats second, and the thing had infected his consciousness with ease. The whole was much greater than the sum of its parts. There was some fundamental idea regarding the construction of thought-plagues that still eluded him.

While Oak beat his head against a wall, Sadia delved into the secrets of diabolism. He had glanced at the pages she poured over to find them filled with the diagrams of summoning circles and listings of the names of different demons. Sadia's grandmother had even included nifty little sections under each name, detailing their personality and general usefulness.

Oak's favorite entry concerned a demon named Caym. The words, 'Just don't' were underlined three times right next to the demon's name. That was it. Sadia's grandmother provided no further explanation. Just don't.

Some people pride themselves in their ability to say a lot with few words. Sadia's grandma might have been one of them.

To the utter bafflement of the rest of the caravan, completely spent after a hard day of marching, Ur-Namma exercised for a solid hour every day before he went to bed. It felt comforting to know that Oak was not alone in his strangeness. Thanks to his sharp hearing, he knew that many in the caravan considered them all to be on the wrong side of the line between sanity and madness.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

How right those poor souls were. If Oak allowed it, the Butcher would carve them all up and howl with glee.

***

Oak could see the swamp, and he didn't much like what he saw. He stood on top of the hill that marked the end of the plains, looking at the front of the wagon-train inching downhill. The wetlands stretched to the horizon, and the sight of them made him feel nauseous.

Flies, bogholes, tall grass, a veritable army of mosquitoes, more flies and no end in sight. Short, sickly looking trees covered every patch of solid ground. There was a section of land, maybe half a mile wide, going through the muck that looked less wet than the surrounding swamp, but that wasn't saying much.

The road across the wetlands followed that half a mile wide snake of 'solid' ground, and so would the caravan. Oak spat on the grass and glowered at the landscape ahead of him.

I wonder. How many crocodiles can you fit in a swamp like this one?

Geezer dug at his boot with his paw and poked Oak in the thigh with his snout. The hellhound had a questioning look in his red eyes.

"It's nothing, Geezer. The ambience of this place doesn't fill me with confidence, that's all."

"Hah! Wise words, pale man." Yakubu Nkruma stopped his horse by Oak's side, gazing at the misery ahead with a smile on his face. The smile didn't reach Yakubu's eyes. Since the crocodile attack, the Koromite warrior donned a mail shirt over his clothes every morning and kept a spear close at hand. "I have heard people live there."

"Where? In the swamp?" Oak asked. He had once thought himself a worldly man, but Creation never stopped proving him wrong. The idea of anyone willingly calling that disease riddled land of mud, water and pus home was so alien it had never even crossed his mind.

"Yes, or so the stories say."

"How? More importantly, why?"

"Beats me." Yakubu shrugged and the links of his mail shirt creaked. "Maybe it's the only place no one else wants to live in?"

They looked at each other and then back at the wetlands, crawling with swarms of mosquitoes.

"Yeah. I could believe that," Oak replied. "Actually, as far as I'm concerned, that is the truth of it. No further evidence required."

"I'm glad I could be of assistance." Yakubu grinned mischievously. "You looked vexed, and Ur-Namma told me you must not overtax your mind. Something to do with the limitations imposed by the northern skull shape."

"Yakubu. I'm sure a man such as yourself has much to do. Go make sure one of your kids hasn't swallowed a frog, or something."

To the swamp they went. Not that there were any other options, unless you wanted to turn back.

The grass infesting every corner of the swamp had looked tall from the hill above, but Oak had not realized how suffocating it would be to walk in its shadow. Even the shortest stalks of grass were twice as tall as a grown man. They had more in common with the reeds that grew on the shores of lakes in the Northlands, except they were ten times taller and sturdier to boot.

A green wall of tall grass enclosed the road from all sides, hugging the caravan in its wet, sweltering embrace.

Despite the shade, people stumbled around like drunks in the heat, clothes soggy from the moisture covering everything like a wet blanket. The air felt damp and thick enough to drink. Oak's boots held up until lunch. After that, he marched with wet feet, his mood darkening by the moment.

They traveled 18 miles that day and Tochukwu was happy with their progress. That, more than any rant about the horrid conditions, told the truth of their circumstances. Oak had seen the man pushing smoke out of his ears when they had cleared under 20 miles on a given day.

Now the leader of the caravan just looked relieved.

Sadia made her rounds that evening, a bronze medallion carved with intricate patterns dangling from her grip. Oak went with her, to make sure no one tried anything stupid. Only a handful of people apart from Tochukwu's group of merchants and teamsters bought Sadia's purification services, but even a small amount of coin was a welcome addition to their meager funds.

Thanks to Sadia's new tool, the process was swift. She dunked the medallion inside a water barrel and exerted her soul, channeling power through the pathways carved into the medallion. Ten heartbeats was enough to make even a big barrel disease free for the moment.

"Could you use that to purify a person?" Oak asked, out of simple curiosity. "If they got sick, I mean?"

"Not unless you want that person to shit out their guts," Sadia replied, smothering a grin. "I know, because I asked the same question back at university and my teachers provided some vivid descriptions. But, if you want to try it…"

"Thanks, but no thanks."

***

The next morning, it became apparent everyone had not boiled their drinking water. A young woman traveling with the Erelim worshipers walked past Oak, Sadia and Ur-Namma, carrying water from a nearby pond in a bucket towards her family's wagon, when the horror started.

Oak could not look away, even as the bowl of porridge slipped from his fingers, spilling his breakfast onto the soggy earth. It looked like every ounce of fluid in the young woman's body had formed a pact to escape together, and to Hell with the consequences.

Eyes wide and face pale, the woman lost control of her bowels. Watery shit flowed down her legs while she spewed sick from her mouth in a great arc. Strangled gagging filled the air. Without realizing it, Oak had stood up and taken five steps back from the woman. So had everyone else.

The runs. The fucking runs. Oak didn't care about the loss of his breakfast. His appetite had taken a hike and would not return anytime soon.

The poor woman's family ran to her side, prayers at their lips and helpless expressions on their faces. When the runs started like that, the only thing you could do was pray. They carried her quivering form into their wagon, placed whatever covers they could find under her, and got ready to leave. The caravan waited for no one.

Sadia, the saint that she was, went over and purified their water free of charge. Oak did not accompany her. He kept his distance from the wagon in question, out of nothing but honest fear. It was too late to do anything for that family, anyway. They had all drank the same water. Now, it was just a question of time.

With a resigned look on his weathered face, Tochukwu ordered the family's wagon to the back of the wagon-train, to keep them away from everyone else, and they set out once more. By lunch, Oak heard the teamster's whispering that the other members of the sick young woman's family looked feverish.

When the caravan stopped to make camp that evening, the sick young woman, her family, and their wagon were gone. They had fallen out of the caravan.

That night, when Oak followed Sadia around the caravan, the little spellsinger's services were in high demand. Sadia made ten times the coin she had made the previous evening, but Oak couldn't find it in himself to smile and Sadia didn't look overjoyed, either.

Disease had joined the hunt for their lives, and no one was safe from its predation.

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