A Soldier's Life

Chapter 32: Swamp Things

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The loss of another legionnaire hung heavy on the company. The remaining men were splitting the night watch, and we were all bundling our tents toward the center of the island. I was asked to participate in the second watch and agreed without hesitation. I was going to share it with four other men. The air remained humid, but the temperature had dropped significantly. Mage Durandus had only dried himself before going to sleep. He informed the men that he was still recovering his using his aether healing men in the morning. We would have to sleep in wet clothes tonight.

I slept heavily, even soaking wet. I was roused in the middle of the night and felt yesterday’s aches. Durandus had only healed the skin and cleared the infection on my leg. My muscles were still sore. Since there was a chill, I wrapped my bed roll around me while I went to serve on watch. We sat, and the watch was explained in a whisper, “We will each cover an arc of a quarter island’s shore. Your arc is here,” he pointed out in the moonlight the range of my focus. “The water is still, and the moonlight is strong. Focus on the shoreline and look for ripples in the waters. If you see anything just tap me and point it out. I will decide if the alarm needs to be raised.”

We positioned ourselves on a rotting log on one side of the camp. The other three men took the other side of the camp. It was about fifteen minutes before my partner whispered, “Eryk, right?” I nodded in the moonlight. “I am Brutus.”

“Nice to meet you, Brutus,” I whispered back. “How long have you been with Durandus?”

“About two years,” he whispered back and was quiet for a period. “I always thought having a company mage with healing would be good. It did not help that the giant was splattering us with one swing.”

I recalled Brutus was the lone survivor of the spearmen. He had received a massive blow to his skull and been knocked out and revived after the fighting. “We should just be happy we survived and get back to the city,” I whispered back. Two loud clicks from the other side of the camp had Brutus turn his head quickly.

“Hold up a minute. That is a signal for a possible attack,” he remained still, and we both listened hard. After five minutes, a single click came, and he relaxed, “It happens two or there times in the night. We have a strong moon tonight, but the dark still plays tricks on the eyes.”

I looked up at the moon and studied it. Unlike the moon I was accustomed to, this moon was twice the size and had deep blue coloring. Maybe it was covered in water because it had a glossy look. “You shouldn’t stare at it,” Brutus said. “It will ruin your night sight for a few minutes because it is brighter than the surroundings.”

“I think so. It is called Neptune’s Tear. Neptune controls the tides and storms,” he said, tensing, shifting, and pulling a dagger, “Quiet!” he rasped as he focused. I saw it too. There were ripples in the water on the shore. He stood and produced his glow stone bag. I pulled one from my dimensional space. I had charged all of them, so I knew it was ready. He moved to the right, “If I see something, I will throw the glowstone at it so we can fight with more light.”

“I am ready as well,” I whispered back. Brutus tapped twice on his spear with his dagger, signaling the others on the watch for a possible enemy. I gripped my own spear tightly, trying to see movement in the blue-gray-lit swamp. I started to get an uneasy feeling rising in me. “Do you?” I questioned.

“Yes.” he tapped twice more on his spear. “The smell is getting stronger.” I inhaled deeply, and the stench of the swamp was stronger. I hadn’t noticed. “It might be the giant tortoise again stirring up the swamp waters nearby,” Brutus said hopefully.

“Should we wake everyone?” I asked, trying to find movement.

Brutus started to say, “Yes,” then the alarm went up on the other side of the camp. Metal banging together. “Go help them. I will watch this side of the island so we don’t get attacked from behind.” I hesitated for a moment before running through the camp to the other sentry position. The tents were stirring as I passed them.

A scream of pain from where I was running to, “It has got me! Cut it!” I hurried, thinking it was a giant frog tongue pulling a man to a watery grave again. I took my light stone and threw it toward the screams for help. What I saw did not make sense to my eyes.

A mound of vegetation had wrapped wrist-thick vines around a man’s legs and was pulling the man toward itself. He had lost his bow and was stabbing the vines with a dagger. To my left, the other pair of sentries was hacking away with short swords at a similar mound of plant mass. The swamp thing was attacking us like in a bad horror movie from Earth. I ran and stabbed the body of the one pulling the archer in. He screamed at me, “Cut the fucking vines!”

He was only a few feet from the body of the monster. The tents were lit with glowstones, and the other men would be here soon to help. I started stabbing the vines pulling him, but it did not break them. His foot reached the mound, and the vegetation moved aside for his foot to be pulled inside. Glow stones were tossed around the fight, and two men appeared next to me and began to hack the vines with swords. Chunks of gooey plant parts started flying off the creature from the assault.

We were making progress. A vine lashed out from the creature and slammed down into a swordsman’s shoulder with an audible crack. His knees buckled, and he dropped his short sword and struggled to pull a dagger with his other arm. Finally, Mage Durandus arrived and moved to cast a spell at our creature. A lightning bolt flared in front of me, blinding me and forcing me back a step with a minor clap of thunder.

“No lightning,” rang across from a soldier in the other fight. “It is a shambler. Lightning only heals it!”

I was blinded but heard the mage swear, “Damn it, shambling mounds, should have known.”

I stepped away as I attempted to find my sight by blinking rapidly and listening to the struggle. The loudest sound was the scream of the archer being pulled in, and I could hear his bones breaking. I blinked my sight back to see the man inside the mound, his body crushed in the mass. His screams mercifully ended when a vine forced its way into his mouth, filling his throat.

I could see the frost on the ground as the mage started to freeze the creature as he had done with the storm giant. The creature tried to lash out at the remaining swordsman, with the archer’s life now ended in its body. Brutus yelled from the other side of the clearing, “Got another one over here!”

With my spear ineffectual, I grabbed the short sword from the legionary who dropped his when the vine whip had broken his shoulder. The mage had frozen the creature and was out of his range, so I rushed to help Brutus. On the other side of the camp, the creature was dripping with swamp water as it moved onto land. Brutus’ light stone shadowed the mound to make it look even more menacing.

Brutus was backing up toward the camp, not engaging. He looked at me, “How is it on the other side?”

I told him, “Mage Durandus has one captured in ice, and the others are hacking the other one.”

“I do not know much about these things,” he admitted. Our scout was the one that knew lightning healed them. “What do you say we keep backing up until we reach the others for help?”

“That sounds like a bloody brilliant plan,” I remarked at the smartest thing I had heard in a while.

Another man was grappled and pulled inside one of the creatures. They couldn’t kill it fast enough, and the mage was occupied freezing the other one. His panicked cries and then screams ended in under a minute.

We backed halfway to the others when the fighting started to die. A call that it was dead reached us. Mage Durandus yelled his creature was contained and for everyone to finish off the one in camp.

Mage Durandus came to our aid first, and the ground frosted over as he began his spell. Soon, we all surrounded the creature and waited for the limbs of vine-like limbs to freeze before hacking them off. I joined in, and soon, the mound was nothing but a big pile of green vines and sap. We were all sweaty and covered in the sticky goo. Another victory in defeat—two men lost to gruesome deaths.

The scout said, “The frozen one is still alive. We should hack it to pieces.”

Durandus countered the order, “No, it is more likely to give an essence if it is alive.” He took out his plate-sized essence collector and placed it over the pile of goo. It flared for a moment, but nothing formed. He frowned. He moved to the other mound, and our group of seven moved with him. This hacked mound also gave nothing but a flash.

“Damn it. It should have given something!” Durandus voiced angrily. I think because the soldier was trapped in the remains, he thought either the shambling mound or the dead soldier would have yielded something. His last hope was the living mound, frozen in place with a body trapped inside.

The scout advised, “Durandus, we should just hack it to pieces before you attempt your harvest.”

He waved him aside, “It is contained. If the ice casing cracks, you all can move in and slash it to death.” We all moved in close, and I was facing the trapped man whose face was twisted in pain and agony with a vine shoved into his throat. That could have been me.

Durandus placed held the disc out and began the process. Apparently, it took longer on living creatures because it was still glowing after a few seconds. The mage’s face was expectant and smiling. That was when the ice coating shattered, and a heavy vine instantly slammed into his body and threw him out into the swamp. A heartbeat later, we were hacking away at the not-so-frozen creature.

The scout yelled, “Brutus, go get the mage. Eryk, use a potion on him! Go!!”

I didn’t tell him all I had were ten cure poison and two stamina potions remaining. I just moved with Brutus into the water. I hoped there were no more of these creatures. I still had my dimensional trick, at least. “How far did he fly?” I asked.

“Don’t know, space out about ten feet, and we will walk away to look. Walk slow and stay alert.” I took out a glow stone and held it high as we walked in waist-deep water. We were almost thirty feet from shore, and the safety of being in a group. My anxiety grew, and a silvery reflection at my feet startled me. It was the essence collector. I oriented my dimensional space to the area and moved it into my space without bending and going into the water to pick it up.

A minute later and almost seventy feet from shore, we found Mage Durandus floating face down. Brutus hesitated and then waded toward him and flipped him over. “He is dead. Must have been knocked unconscious and drowned. Terrible fate for a water mage, to drown.” He did not sound too disappointed. I thought the mage’s death was karmic.

Shambling Mound /monsters/17011-shambling-mound