The owlets were actually being quite well-behaved right now. It was as though they could sense imminent danger. Or maybe they’d finally exhausted themselves after days of being noisy little arseholes.
The unspoken tension rose as we all waited for the scouts to return. I knew the others had the same fear I did: that they wouldn’t return at all.
Despite my concerns, it seemed the scouts had encountered nothing untoward in our immediate path and proceeded to lead the exodus toward the edge of the marsh and our mountainous destination.
Not a minute too soon.
Time remaining for Exodus: 6 days, 6 hours, 51 minutes
The scouts climbed onto the badger’s backs once more, the better to guide them and keep them on the path, and also to defend them with their stonebows if need be. The ground was more treacherous than ever. Up till now, the groundwater had collected into shallow stagnant pools amid the squelchy raised pathways we’d taken. Here, though, the entire surface was beneath murky water.
Darker parts indicated the presence of sinkholes, which curiosity had me popping down into to take a look—perhaps I’d see another neat skeleton like the one we’d found yesterday. But all I saw were snakes and animal bones, and, once, what looked like a human child’s skull. I stopped looking after that.
Thanks to their advanced skills, the scouts were able to lead the wagons carefully around these deeper areas. The gnomes peered over the wooden sides, looking fearful but relieved to be safely ensconced within their shelters, while the warriors picked their way alongside them on foot, weapons ready to lash out at any enemy that dared show its face. Benin and Coll brought up the rear.
The trees were growing sparser, though it seemed even darker than before. The rising mist was almost opaque, swallowing sunlight and muffling noise. Most of the marsh’s ambient sounds had fallen silent; the loons were no longer wailing, the insects were quiet, and even the frogs had taken a break. Every remaining noise became more sinister—it was impossible to tell how far away something was, whether it was the plop of a diving frog or something bigger.
Other shapes loomed out of the mist, revealing themselves to be what looked like fallen trees. The oddly curved humps rose and fell, patterned in black and brown like tree bark. It reminded me of something, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
Our progress was slow but steady, and Coll predicted we’d be out of the forest by nightfall. Despite my Augmentary map showing a swath of red that indicated an abundance of snakes, the reptiles were keeping their heads down; though we saw plenty slither past in the water between the wagons’ wheels, and heard hissing and rustling in the branches overhead, not a single one tried to attack us, which was actually sort of unnerving.
At least there aren’t as many frogs here.
After a couple of hours, I noticed something interesting. From the shallower parts of the water—the “paths” we were following—there started to spring a type of mushroom I’d never seen before. Greenish-black in color, they resembled slimy moss-covered logs jutting vertically from the ground. As we got closer, I revised my assessment; they looked more like rotting hands protruding from the watery earth, complete with a dozen tentacle-like “fingers” drooping from their caps.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I waited impatiently for us to get close enough; as soon as the nearest one was within my Sphere, I activated Insight.
Shrieker Shroom
Fungi
I hurriedly scanned the description for the words “venomous” or “toxic” and relaxed when I didn’t spot them. The smaller size of my Sphere meant the scouts leading us were almost upon the mushrooms before I was able to identify them. I’d been prepared to order an emergency halt, but it seemed we were safe enough for now.
I wonder why they’re called shriekers…
Just as I was about to return to the Augmentary’s description, the first badger in the convoy—Steelpaw, one of the dire badgers—splashed his way past the first shrieker. The scouts had passed by earlier without incident, but the moment the badger’s forepaw disturbed the water around the dead-looking mushroom, it screamed.
The drooping finger-like fringe jerked up and out to circle its cap like a decaying halo as the shrieker earned its name a million times over. Steelpaw shied away from the noise, shaking his striped head violently as though the frequency were actually hurting him. The gnomes on the wagon behind him cried out as well, hands covering their ears, confused children adding their own frightened screams to the din.
The dire badger slipped, one foot splashing into the deeper water of a hidden pool at the side of the path. The wagon lurched sickeningly, and I almost cried out myself at the sudden image of them all tipping into the deep water and being set upon by serpents. But Steelpaw was sturdy and surprisingly agile. Under Longshank’s guidance, he righted himself, then trotted along the path past the shrieker, still shaking his head and huffing in distress.
A few moments later, the shrieker stopped.
The immediate silence was almost as painful as the sudden noise had been. I sensed both Ket and Bekkit’s shock through our bond and saw it mirrored on the faces of the humans.
“Shriekers,” I explained hoarsely. “Noisy bastards, apparently.”
“Yeah, well, let’s not do that agai—”
Benin stopped abruptly when an entire section of nearby ground shifted. What I’d thought to be a massive submerged log off to our right slowly began to move, its shadow sliding darkly beneath the murky water.
I stared around in horror as the other shapes I’d thought were fallen tree trunks also began to shift. It was difficult to tell in the thick mist,
