“How much farther?” Ard squinted at the sun through the dead pines above, dappled light played across green eyes.

            “Far.”

            The crimson murk of Red Slough gurgled, mocking Ardwin’s question like a squelching laugh. The rhythmic clack of hooves on ragged road and the echoes of the swamp did not deafen his frustration. A stray beard of lichen caressed Ard’s face and set a petulant edge to his voice.

            “You said that three days ago too.”

            “True then, true now.” Follmer’s white beard smirked beneath his ragged cloth mask, the scent of dried Dogwood blooms cracked with his grin, masking fetid rot of the slough. Follmer always thought Dogwood literally smelled like wet dog.

            Better wet dog than dead dog

            “You chose this life Ardy” Follmer chuckled, patting the cracklock rifle on the side of his mare. Ard grimaced through his own mask, both looked across the briny ripples of crimson “water”, fleshy chunks of bone bobbed under the sickly rose sky. Gadflies the size of grapes danced above the soup of carrion, scattering when the amorphous denizens of the marsh surfaced to eat. Ard suspected they had a hard time staying above the water due to their random configurations of limbs, mouths and eyes.

            “I imagined more drinking and shooting and less… flesh… pits.” Ard caressed his own cracklock pistol strapped to his chest, mostly out of apprehension. Follmer chuckled.

            “That’s cause the kids inside the walls that imagine flesh pits stay inside the walls.” Ard had felt dumber every day since he’d left Arlastin.

          “Why’d you leave?”

          “Didn’t. I was born out here, the road’s my only home.”

          “You were a vagrer?” Follmer drew a long sigh

          “I am a ranger, and I was Ebonbairn. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna feed you to moths or make your spine into a necklace.”

          “I’m sorry I’ve just never met – “

          “It’s fine.”

            The two cantered on in silence, black coats gently flapping in the breeze. Quiet minutes grew into quiet hours on the winding road of bridges and bricks in varying states of decay and disrepair. Ard constantly found himself scratching at the burning brand on his neck. The thrumming pain hadn’t stopped since they descended the mountains into The Cyst, the air was thick with the plague’s red miasma, like ashen flakes of blood.

          The Slough had a strange beauty to it. A few species of willows and flowering trees had adapted to the rot, the blood gave their bark a rusty hue and set red edges on their pale blooms. The droning hum of cicadas and calls of carrion birds filled the air. Ard kept seeing little rods of dark red flowers that Follmer called Blodwyrt. He’d also advised Ard to crush some up and smear it on any exposed skin to keep the Gadflies away, unless he wanted to be “The proud mother of thumb sized, skin-eating maggots.” Ard was quick to take the advice.

            “How many times have you done this?”

            “Enough,” Follmer took a quick glance at the waters and snapped his head back straight, “My clan took this route a few times.”

“Why not just go around?”

          “Because we came in here to bathe in rotblood.” Follmer knew he had to let Ard’s comment go, he could feel the poor kid behind him looking down in shame. “It was a pilgramage, theres a big old cathedral out here full of those moths you love so much.”

          Two nights ago, on the edge of The Cyst, Follmer tossed a rotted forearm into their fire just before sundown. He said the smell would discourage the dead from coming their way. He was correct, but what he did not tell Ard was the smell would also attract a swarm of Bael Moths that he awoke comepletely covered in.

          “Why haven’t we seen any?”

          “Well they’re nocturnal kid, we don’t travel at night, and they’re too busy eating the rotblood to pay you any mind.”

          “They were trying to eat us?”

          “No, but they were checking to see if we were cold and rotted enough for them to start eating us.”

          Ard shuddered, but then figured selective moths weren’t the worst thing he’d had try eating him.

          They pressed on. Ard started seeing more dilapidated structures. Derelict homes rotted down to their cobbletsone foundations, sunken shrines rusted with crimson brine. Tallow candles and old bone chimes adorned some of the sites. Hesitantly, Ard decided to prod.

          “Why did you leave your clan?” Follmer didn’t respond with his usual joke or snap, Ard wondered if he might ignore the question entirely.

          “I didn’t. I lost them.” Ard was content to not press further, but Follmer was ready to do something far worse than snap. He was ready to give Ard a lesson, and Ard took it quietly.

          “We came through on a summer day near the solstice like today, we had just enough light to make the trip. Just enough, and we couldn’t afford accidents, you know what that’s like.” He did, Ard knew already the most dangerous thing one could do was lose their balance, or miss the tiniest sign something was watching them. Follmer did not wait for him to ask what happened, “

            “One of the childer, barely fourteen, Fythe. He fell ass over tit into the deep, pulled him down, hollering something awful. One of our watchers, Bran, big fellow, starts Pullin at him. He’s afraid to pull as hard as he can for fear of ripping the poor Fythe in half, but the kid comes up a bit,” Follmer choked, he looked far away past the pines, right back to that awful moment, “No legs, not even bone, just the tail of his spine, couldn’t turn him so it just, ate him. Down to the bone, something like roots or veins wormed up into his torso, he started rippin off his brand.” Follmer’s gut knotted like a noose.

            “He spoke, talked like he’d grown extra voices in the back of his throat, ‘I want to be awake, I want to be awake.’” Follmer trailed off, spiraling down with his stomach until the grief reached a fever pitch. He awoke to the present again, to the squelching and buzzing, and to an Ard a little greener around the gills than he’d left him, he looked back, “Just another part of the ramble kid, even Rangers go mad on the path, fact of life. We’re only men, we weren’t made for this world. You’ll live to see worse, hopefully.” Follmer looked toward the Slough one last time, “Come on, we’re burning daylight.”

            The sun crossed noon, tinted shades of copper as it lumbered across the sickly heavens to the west horizon.

            “We’ll need shelter soon” Ard prodded

            “No, we go straight through, by the short and curlies we’ll make it,” Follmer could feel another protest in Ard’s throat, “Slough’s a hungry place at night, ain’t no shelter here.”

            A wretched mewling echoed across the murk, Ard jumped and snapped his head to the mire, Follmer’s hand gripped his rifle. About fifty paces out in the red water, thrashing and crying, a chunk of flesh that looked vaguely like a toddler’s head bobbed to the surface. It was split down the middle, threads of sinew and skin wrenched the two haves together with the grace of hungry jaws. White eyes rolled into place.

            “Don’t look at it Ard.” Sclera’s sprouted veins like roots, scared pupils peered back at Ard. “Look away!” Follmer turned toward Ard. Flesh took shape like clay, the eyes formed fully into a verdant green. His own brown hair draped across them, but where a boyish jaw should’ve been a veil of flesh grew into place, wrinkled and bunched like his mask. It let out a muffled scream, it was awake.

            Follmer ripped Ard away, he cupped the poor boy’s head in his hands.

            “It ain’t real kid.” Ard looked back, the flesh had collapsed, unable to withstand the weight of existence without its muse. It faded back as it was swallowed up by something scaly with distinctly human teeth. “Just reflections.”

            Vomit raced up Ard’s throat, he barely choked it back down to save his mask. He looked back to Follmer, who with an affirming nod remounted his horse.

            The shadow of the pines stretched longer across the red, the copper sun sank low on the sawtooth tree line. Ard had now decided opening his mouth was not in his best interest, because the Slough seemed to listen better than Follmer did, but the growing shadows got the better of his gut.

            “Follmer.” He trudged on, not a glance back.

            “Follmer!” louder

            “Don’t yell!” Follmer hissed.

            “We gotta hole up till dawn, we won’t make it out by nightfa- “

“FOOOOLLmMmEEEEeerRRRrrrrrrr…” The slough mocked, both stopped dead and searched for the voice. By the bank Ard saw Cattails, their tips replaced with two bloody strings of soft tissue, resonating with the whispering wind before mocking again, “DOooon’t YeeeEEllLLLl…” Another patch of reeds screeched, now another, each parrot distorting and descending until it collapsed into a long screech.

            “Ride, NOW!”          

            Both mares raced against the dying light, the murk opened along the shore as its dregs and wretches clambered out. Legs, arms, fingers grew like oak branches in a wild gnarl that raced ever closer to the thundering hooves. Nine cold fingers cracked around Ard’s ankle, his skull rung as it crashed to the road. He felt thorns gnash into his skin.

            Follmer leapt off his horse, Ard’s head felt hot, he felt thorns snaking up his leg, he looked down and wailed as a barbed tendril of muscle pulsed and squelched ever closer.

            Tugged one way by the Slough, another by Follmer, he gave out.

            Ard awoke to the drip of water on stone, a meager fire smoldered in front of him. The fire’s dancing warmth enthralled his tired eyes so much he barely saw Follmer tending to it. Their eyes met, Follmer glided toward him.

            “Go back to sleep Ardy.”

            “Where…?”

            “Go back to sleep.”

            “What happened?”

            “Go back to sleep.”

            “Stop fucking saying that!”

            Follmer stared

            “They can see you if you’re awake.”

            “What?”

            “Don’t wake up.” The cave walls flitted red and faded from view, yawning into an abyss of crimson. The fire light twitched with the shadow it was attached to as it swam by.

            They can see me

Ard felt himself chained by flesh to the silt and rot. A thousand pricks rippled across his skin as it struggled against the floor of the marsh. The burning in his arm stopped, ghostly numbness replaced it. Then his other arm, leg, breaking apart, shedding an unbearable weight until he could float away.

            No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

            Veins and roots popped as he pulled himself free, swimming from the womb toward the shimmering sky of sun and blood.

            He broke the surface, gasping, crying, looking frantically over the Slough. He saw the road, two men on horseback in the approaching dusk, one with no mouth and green eyes that met his own.

            He screamed.