Sir Vallis cursed as he tossed another stone into the fetid still surface of the bog. The rock slipped through the green, muck-coated surface of the water with a strangely muted 'ploorb' sound and vanished from sight. "Should have listened to my father, 'Never trust a shaa,' he would always say." Vallis spat, some white spittle flecking his red mustached lips.
"Curse you, Deesha, you...you thrice-bedeviled oversized pyxee!" The man roared, shaking his gauntleted fists at the sky. Deep down, Sir Vallis knew that he was really just as angry at himself for what he'd said to Deesha, but his stubborn pride would never let the Knight of the Crimson Circle admit that--at least not now. Not until he'd cooled off a little. He spun on an armored heel and began to stalk away from the water's edge.
The two companions had found themselves lost in a trackless swamp just south of Bar-Donnath. Luckily, they'd run across a party of loathsome Gree-Gree who claimed to know the way out to firmer, dryer and more civilized land. Sir Vallis knew that the Gree-Gree could be trusted no further than he could walk on water, so he'd flatly refused their help. After all, he and Deesha had made it through countless other scraps, all of them just as perilous as this one.
Yet the shaa had agreed to the Gree-Grees' help, almost instantly! Sir Vallis felt his blood begin to boil and it was almost as if he could hear it bubbling and moving in his ears. The more he thought about Deesha's betrayal to him--or was it her lack of confidence in him--the angrier he became. The Knight did not think he'd ever been this mad, in fact. He could almost swear that he could hear his blood moving and sloshing in his head...
Sloshing?
Sir Vallis spun, his mighty blade ringing from its sheath like one of the enchanted silver bells of St. Flora's Chapel.
Before him rose a titanic swamp horror, a massive half-rotten thing with strange fleshy wings the span of four herd barns placed end-to-end. Upon its bloated, scabrous back grew a living field of dead man's tongues, a type of strange flat-growing water plant known by even the smallest child to be a deadly poison by their odd purple color. Foul-smelling green ichor spilled from the thing's hollow eye sockets, sizzling like fat upon a hot iron.
The only thing Sir Vallis regretted was that he would not be able to apologize to Deesha before he died...
- Story and Characters (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth
- Art Source
- Inspired by
Author's Notes: Sir Vallis and Deesha are a part of a yet-unnamed fantasy world that I've had growing, like a fungus, in the back of my brain for several years now. Filled with all of the generally fantasy tropes, but all canted slightly to one side to make them just bizarre enough to fit my odd tastes, it's a project that I hope one day, to fully flesh out more. While these stories do not tie directly into the Wyrdwar, they the type of thing that when I'm writing, I like to cherry-pick concepts and idea seeds from. For instance, I could definitely see a spin-off story related to dead man's tongues and hags, for instance, giving Walter W. Winans some issues one day... Also of note here, the Gree-Gree, while based on ancient tales from France (and later Louisiana) were prominently featured in the card-based RPG I co-created several years ago, Untold. They were always some of my favorites...no matter here, just a little inane trivia for you, faithful readers!
