The Part About the Dragon was (Mostly) True

by Sean Gibson

  While the patient approach suited Borg quite nicely, asking Whiska to take her time and tread carefully was a little bit like asking a bear not to defecate in the woods, and then tying him up in the middle of the woods and force-feeding him Rajami food (which, it goes without saying, even though I’m saying it, is considerably spicier than the average bear’s fare). It was only after we had dragged her out of the muck a third time—smelling like Rajami food that had just come out of a tied-up bear—that she finally agreed, albeit grudgingly and with the liberal use of epithets in at least three different languages.

  By the time daylight started to fade (not that it made much of a difference), I looked back in an effort to gauge our progress…and proceeded to liberally use epithets in three different languages—the common tongue, elvish, and a few creative orc curses I’d picked up when demonstrating certain Heloisian submission techniques on a very confused (but not unaroused) High Chieftain Gnurk. Unless my eyes deceived me, we’d gone no more than one hundred yards. Maybe not even seventy-five.

  “We need to make camp soon,” said Nadi as she surveyed our surroundings. “If we try to wander around here in the dark, we’re all going to smell like Whiska.”

  “It would be an improvement in every case!” shouted Whiska.

  “Be that as it may,” said Rummy, “I’m not entirely sure I’ve got Ms. Tailiesin’s intestinal fortitude, so would prefer to remain, at least insomuch as it’s possible in the middle of a multiday trek through a swamp, unsullied by muck.”

  “It’s getting…dark,” said Borg.

  “There,” I said, pointing to our left. “That mound over there. It should be big enough for all of us to spread out. Or, at least, sit down.”

  Nadi nodded and led the way. Even though the mound was only about 15 yards away, it took us nearly an hour to navigate the smucking pathway (“smucking” is the only word I can think of that accurately describes the combination of sucking and muck; it’s also less offensive than how I actually referred to the pathway, though it does rhyme with at least one of the words I used). When we reached the mound, we collapsed, tossing our packs down and not moving for a while. You don’t realize how exhausting slow, careful walking is until you stop doing it.

  Our respite ended when a loud rumble shook the mound.

  “What in the name of flaming cockroach anuses was that?!” yelled Whiska, leaping to her feet.

  “Flaming cockroach anuses?” I silently mouthed to Rummy, who shrugged.

  “Weapons out,” said Nadi, straining to see through the dim light.

  “I bet it’s bog men,” said Rummy.

  “It’s not bog men,” I replied.

  “How do you know it’s not bog men?” asked Rummy.

  “Quiet!” said Nadi.

  We stood in silence, looking everywhere but seeing nothing.

  “I’m…hungry,” said Borg. “My stomach…is rumbling.”

  Nadi slapped her forehead as Rummy patted Borg on the arm. “Maybe a little warning next time, big guy.”

  “I just…gave you one,” replied the rock giant, nonplussed.

  “Warnings are supposed to come before the thing happens,” said Rummy helpfully. “Otherwise it’s just a recap of what happened.”

  We set to preparing dinner, pulling rations from our packs. Whiska scraped together a bit of moss and pointed her staff at it, but before she could utter an incantation, Nadi grabbed the staff. Whiska’s eyes flared. “Never touch my staff, you pointy-eared tree licker!”

  “No,” replied Nadi, her voice steely. “We’ve already made too much noise. You want to start a fire? Why not just send up a flare or build a lighthouse to let the bog men know where we are?”

  “Bog men—bah!” said Whiska, but she sat back down without setting anything on fire, which was no small thing for her.

  We ate in silence, save for Borg’s crunching, Whiska’s slurping, Rummy’s lip smacking, and Nadi’s teeth grinding (which, to be fair, was a result of Borg’s crunching, Whiska’s slurping, and Rummy’s lip smacking). When we were done, Nadi looked once more into the fading light, nodded when she was satisfied that no imminent threats presented themselves, and turned to face the group.

  “We need to get some rest,” she said, “but we also need to stay vigilant. We’ll sleep in shifts and double up on watches. I need less sleep, so I’ll take the first watch alone. Whiska and Heloise, you’re up next. Rummy and Borg, you’ll finish things off. We move at first light, or whatever passes for first light around here. With any luck, we’ll be through the swamp in a couple of days.”

  It was a good plan until a couple of days turned into two weeks.

  There are only so many consecutive days you can slog through a bog, with the ever-present threat of falling into the muck (which not only sullied clothes, but also entailed a not small possibility of death) and without being able to heat the very meager food you’ve got with you, before you start to go a little crazy. Not surprisingly, Whiska succumbed first to swamp madness, though I’m not entirely sure I could tell the difference between normal Whiska and swamp mad Whiska. It was when Borg started giggling hysterically after an alligator nearly ate Rummy (and injured him quite badly) that I realized the mental state of the party was rapidly deteriorating. (Rock giant giggles, incidentally, sound a little bit like bullfrog hiccups.)

  Toward the end of the second week, I pulled Nadi aside. “I’m not quite sure how long we can keep this going,” I said, pointing at Rummy, who was using his index finger to blub-blub his lips while Whiska yelled at a snail for moving too fast.

  “I’m not sure we have a choice,” replied Nadi grimly. “It’ll take us just as long to go back as it will to go forward.”

  I sighed. “At least we haven’t seen any bog men yet.”

  Just then, there was a horrible blorking sound, and a muck-covered head popped out of the swamp. It was dark green and brown, had no discernible facial features beyond a squinty pair of eyes, and, when it fully emerged to the point where only the bottom half of its legs remained obscured by the swamp, it stood about eight feet tall.

  “Bog man!” yelled Rummy.

  “With incredible timing,” I muttered.

  “What do we do?” squeaked Rummy as the creature bore down on him.

  Borg stepped in front of our diminutive companion and thrust his hand out, striking the monster in the chest. It toppled backward and splashed into the brackish water, uttering what sounded like a long, drawn-out “Ooooowwwwwww!”

  Nadi drew her sword, Whiska brought her staff to bear, and I pulled out my dagger. We waited, tense, expecting an army of shambling bog men to descend upon us. Local legends suggested that bog men traveled in packs, and that they were as deadly a creature as could be found in the swampland.

  Turns out local legends are sometimes full of it.

  The bog man stayed down, and, after five minutes of waiting, I sheathed my dagger and shrugged. “Wasn’t such a chore now, was it?”

  “No,” said Nadi, shaking her head. “No. It has to be a trick. That was too easy.”

  We waited for a few more minutes, but didn’t see or hear anything.

  “So,” said Rummy slowly as his head continued to swivel in search of a threat, “are there no bog women?”

  “What?” replied Nadi, turning a stern gaze on him.

  “You always hear about shambling bog men, but you never hear about shambling bog women. There must be women, right? Or else how would they make new bog men? Bog people. Whatever the proper term is.”

  “How do you know that wasn’t a bog woman that we just saw?” I said.

  “Because it…well, huh. Fair point, Heloise,” replied Rummy. “I don’t, really. I don’t know much about bog person anatomy.”

  “So maybe they’re all women and we’ve been wrong this whole time,” I continued. “Maybe there’s not a single bog man.”

  “But then why call them ‘bog men’?”

  I shrugged. “Because people are idiots. And we live in a pa
triarchal society.”

  “It had…a penis,” interjected Borg.

  “What?” asked Nadi, incredulous.

  We waited for two minutes before Borg spoke again. “It flopped around…when I pushed…it.”

  “You pushed his penis?” I asked. “Geez, buy a bog man dinner first, Borg. Or at least a drink.”

  “I don’t think he did that,” said Rummy. “I hope he didn’t, anyway. Because Borg didn’t ask, and it’s not okay to touch a bog man’s penis if he doesn’t say it’s okay.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not okay to touch anyone’s penis without consent,” I said.

  Rummy tilted his head to concede the point. “I think that’s a good general rule. Or maybe just a good genital rule.” He paused expectantly.

  No one laughed, though Whiska did mutter something to the effect of “rather cut them off than touch them.”

  Rummy cleared his throat. “Well, at least we’ve established that.”

  “I meant…that I pushed…the bog man. And then…his penis flopped…when he fell.”

  “That makes more sense,” said Rummy, looking relieved. “I knew you weren’t that kind of rock giant.”

  “So, we still don’t know whether there are bog women,” I said.

  “Oh, come on!” roared Nadi. “Shut up! All of you, shut up! Just stop talking! We’re in the middle of a swamp. We were just attacked by a shambling bog man, and—”

  “I’d really call it more of a saunter than a shamble, truth be told,” said Rummy.

  “Can we call them bog people? I’m just really sensitive to gender issues,” I added.

  Nadi buried her head in her hands. It was another two hours before she said anything.

  Over the next three days, we were attacked by shambling bog men—we made it a point to identify their penises to confirm (though Whiska, displaying a rare and irritating maturity of thought, opined that bog man (person) anatomy might not necessarily mirror our own and, consequently, what we thought were penises (peni?) might, in fact, serve some other purpose, such as allowing them to breathe while submerged, obtaining nutrients from the swamp, or just being something to swing around when they were bored, like a biological toy (though, let’s face it, that’s basically what a penis is)).

  Every single time, a quick shove from Borg sent the creatures sprawling, and not a single one got back up and resumed its assault (or what we assumed would be an assault—in the absence of any of them actually striking any member of the party, I wasn’t entirely sure they were really trying to attack us). So, it turns out that the threat posed by shambling bog men is vastly overrated, though I’d have no problem turning them into fierce and deadly killers when I composed my epic song about the quest. I did, however, omit any mention of their peni.

  A considerably greater threat was the numerous alligators that lived in the swamp. I mentioned that Rummy almost got eaten by one (and badly bitten in the process), but that wasn’t the only instance where we almost met death at the hands of toothy jaws.

  Deep into our trek across the swamp, Nadi, leading the party and carefully testing each step with the tip of her sword, stepped onto what, by visual inspection and with the probing of a sword tip, appeared to be solid ground. A second later, she went hurtling through the air, landing face first in deep muck and alerting the rest of us that we might need to watch out.

  Rummy was next in line, his right arm in a sling from the previous gator encounter, making him even more ineffectual with his mace (though he spent far more time worrying about how the injury might affect his prestidigitation skills). He stumbled backward into Borg, who propped him up and stepped forward, assuming, perhaps, that it was another shambling bog man (person) that had caused the disturbance.

  Not so much. The creature that exploded out of the brackish water was fully fifteen feet long and had jaws the size of a hearty dwarf’s legs (and just as strong, too, by the looks of it, and believe me—dwarf legs can do some things). It looked mostly like an alligator, except for the fact that it was missing all of its flesh. In other words, it was a gigantic undead skeleton alligator, because a regular gigantic alligator attacking you in a swamp isn’t terrifying enough.

  Fortunately, if any member of our party was going to get bitten by a gigantic undead skeleton alligator and survive, Borg had the best chance. The beast locked its jaws on Borg’s arm, and though its teeth had a hard time penetrating the rock giant’s craggy skin, it was heavy enough to pull him off balance, and both Borg and the beast fell down into the water. It was hard to tell who was winning the fight as they thrashed and struggled beneath the surface, churning water and muck high into the air (and covering all of us with stinky swamp goo in the process).

  “Borg!” cried Rummy, helplessly (and ineffectually) brandishing his mace.

  “Move, you useless coin diddler!” yelled Whiska, elbowing Rummy aside. She pointed her staff at the roiling water and muttered an incantation. The end of her staff glowed purple, and what appeared to be a lightning bolt sizzled into the water.

  “What are you doing?” screamed Nadi, horrified. “Bones don’t electrify, but rock giant flesh does!”

  “Oh, shut up, you golden-haired goody-goody—it’s not a lightning spell,” replied Whiska. “Just watch.”

  A moment later, a huge bubble broke the surface of the water, carrying within it one mildly confused rock giant (I say mildly confused because Borg had yet to evince any particularly strong emotion, save for urgency, and that only happened twice per day when he needed to find a bathroom). The bubble floated over to the little patch of ground on which we stood and popped, depositing a muck-covered Borg right at Nadi’s feet. “You’re welcome,” said Whiska.

  “Oh, well…that was, uh, that was well done, Whiska,” said Nadi. “Nice work.”

  “Have to…poop,” said Borg urgently and with strong emotion.

  “Gonna have to hold it for a bit, big guy—our friend is back,” said Rummy, not even bothering to hold his mace up as the creature burst back out of the water.

  “Heloise—can you do anything?” asked Nadi, moving to stand in front of me with her sword held in a defensive position.

  I shook my head. “Undead creatures aren’t affected by my music magic. I mean, I could try to bash the thing with my lute, but I’m pretty sure skelegator’s going to win that battle.”

  “All right—you and Rummy to the rear.”

  “Whose rear?” I asked innocently.

  “Just move, Heloise!” replied a now flustered Nadi.

  “Borg—you’re the front line.” The rock giant grabbed his club and stood up, prepared to swing it at the gator. “Whiska—any spells that might help?”

  Borg connected with the creature’s head, a solid blow that sent it splashing back into the water, but didn’t do any serious damage.

  “I’ve got one thing I can try,” replied Whiska. She closed her eyes and whispered words of magic. She pointed to the surface of the water and an amber-colored circle appeared. A few seconds later, the skelegator popped up again, right through the circle, and took on the amber hue of the spell.

  “Hit it again, Borg—hard!” Whiska cried.

  Borg brought his club around with particular gusto; when it smashed into the beast this time, its bones shattered, floating through the murky light of the swamp like glitter at a Barvindian dressing club. (Fun fact: Barvindians generally wear little to no clothing, so unlike in other cultures with more provocative flesh-based entertainment, they derive excitement from watching attractive dancers put clothing on; yes, it’s as weird as it sounds, especially by the end of a routine, particularly the ones that conclude with the donning of parkas and snow pants.)

  We all looked around anxiously, waiting for another threat to emerge, but silence reigned. Finally, Nadi sheathed her sword. “That was really great teamwork,” she said, nodding appreciatively toward Whiska and Borg.

  “I…pooped,” said Borg, pointing toward his bulging backside.

  “Well,” sa
id Rummy, “before choosing the exciting life of epic adventure, I always did wonder whether that happened in the middle of a battle. Now I guess I know the answer.”

  “It’s not like the smell’s going to get any worse,” I noted.

  Dangerous words, Heloise. Dangerous, and portentous, words.

  Have you ever smelled a dead poleranka?

  Let me back up: do you have any idea what a poleranka is? It’s probably the ugliest thing in existence—if a deformed gopher had revenge sex with a particularly fertile giant spider…well, their offspring would be about one hundred times prettier to look at than a poleranka.

  And it turns out dead polerankas smell even worse than they look.

  We stumbled across the corpse on what turned out to be our last morning in the swamp. It was sprawled on top of a mossy group of rocks, half-submerged in the water and partially ripped open, though whether that ghastly wound caused its death or was a result of swamp creatures trying to eat its insides afterward is a mystery I couldn’t care less about finding the answer to.

  Regardless of how it met its untimely demise, passing within ten feet of the creature caused each and every one of us to vomit. Multiple times. Well, there was one exception: rock giant physiology doesn’t allow them to vomit. Instead, they get explosive diarrhea (the smell of which, I might add, resulted in at least two additional rounds of heaving for most of us).

  I hate swamps.

  Finally—finally—we emerged from the swamp, with our lives, but none of our dignity, intact. And, thankfully, blessedly, within an hour of clearing the last of the marshy ground, not only did the air begin to clear and the glorious scents of flowers and things that didn’t smell like decaying skunks restore some semblance of joy to the act of breathing, but we found a small, pristine spring in which we submerged ourselves completely. We burned every article of clothing, modesty be damned, and sat around naked for about an hour afterward (incidentally, it is not true what they say about rock giants, at least based on the single specimen I happen to have seen in the buff…they do only have one butt).