Unlike Bog Hawk, Grampi and I can’t fly over the river. The nearest crossing is a thin, rickety rope bridge twenty minutes south of my family’s farm, and avoiding it is at least half the reason I always send my summon Scouting south first. The bridge to the north is further, forty minutes away, but it’s made for wagons to cross. The wide pass and solid wood are far less worrying, and it has a hint of travel magic that dampens the bog’s smell.

  Along the way, I catch Grampi up about the dangers and goals of this trip. He knows bogs, but doesn’t know that this one has a card-imbued Bog Elemental roaming around in it, nor that the Ratfolk community is friendly. Grampi’s card has been in our family for so long that we’re not sure when he lived, but there must have been war in his living memory because he’s far more distrustful of them than these Ratfolk deserve. I also tell him that I’m currently wielding a five-card deck with a Bog Hawk, but that I used it to look south and can’t awaken my deck again for another three hours.

  He only speaks up to give advice, all of which he correctly suspects he’s told me before outside of his current, limited memory. His taciturn demeanor unnerved me the first time Mom sent him to protect me on a journey, but that’s just how cards are. When his card manifests as Amiable Storyteller, his tall tales and charming smile are brought to the fore, and when it manifests as Old Adventurer practical-minded caution takes their place. Drips of humor bleeding into his grousing prove both aspects hold the same wit.

  Over the bridge, the bog is beautiful. Verdant two-foot islands dot clear water like fish frozen in the act of bobbing for surface bugs. Reeds and grasses grow heedless of whether their roots grip damp soil or sunken mud. Clumps of algae anchor against islands or branches breaching the surface. Deep pits and shallow silt lie side by side. And there is no place to turn your eyes away from tree trunks. Live trees and dead trees still standing, fallen trees with roots proudly fanned in the air, immersed trunks that you could swim under, bark-covered natural bridges five feet above the ground. It is spring, and leaves from the fall, or last fall, or the fall before, pattern sunken beds. Rot’s grasp is everywhere, in the bog, but it grabs ever so slowly.

  The bog’s a wading place, and one where you step gingerly. You can never tell how high or solid the soil is until your step lands. Pristine-looking logs can be soft and hollow. In my head, I call it adventuring ground.

  I stay on the road until we reach the second hewn stump, which is wrapped around by a string of red-dyed wooden beads because it’s a traveler’s shrine. I bend down to look inside the tiny three-sided shed, curious how the short wooden dolls’ garments have changed since my last visit. The faceless figurines are part of the shrine, but travelers often add scraps of their own cloth or tie frayed strands from their own clothes to serve as a figurine’s belt.

  Grampi kneels beside me to look too. He scoffs. “Don’t take their fine dress today as a sign of good fortune, lad. If there were mud streaks or burlap, perhaps that traveler walked where you planned to tread and cleared out dangers, but the sort of folk that gifted these delicate threads stick to the road. This shrine speaks nothing of the bog.”

  I know, and I add a short thread from my family’s farm to show from where I’ve successfully come. I’ll add to it a tear of burlap on my return.

  The shrine also marks the beginning of a half-path off the road, leading towards the Ratfolk settlement. That’s farther than I intend to go, but walking on it will get me closer to my traps.

  Bracing my nose, I step off the road. The Ratfolk path is good as always; my boots sink into the mud two inches and no more. “Good road,” Grampi comments. He usually does, when he notices the difference. The road’s air is a little chilly and smelly, but one step off is downright brisk, and the stink hits like a slap. I’ve learned to focus on the faint sweetness in the rot, ignoring the thicker scents.

  We walk twenty minutes before leaving the path. It’s rude to set a trap right by the travel path, and I don’t, but at least by clambering over dead trees and mud-slick boulders I can get to my closest one without stepping more than knee-deep. It’s empty, but I replace the trigger-string anyway. Damp air weakens twine quickly.

  From my pack, I take the burlap-wrapped bag of fat. The deer only rendered a couple pounds, but left too long it seeps through the cloth. Already, the burlap feels a little greasy. I pull up the nearby long stick that marks and holds down my family’s stash, using a nearby tree stump as a lever to lift its six-feet sunken bottom above the water. Sacks of animal fat dangle near the end like fist-sized grapes on a vine. I tie the fruit of the most recent hunt among them and use the stick to push them deep. Storing animal fat this way preserves it as bog butter, which can be good to eat decades later.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Soon, my personal trail above the waterline comes to an end. There’s a gap with no branches to cling to nor rocks just under the surface nor close mounds to jump to. The nearest is five feet away; an easy enough jump from solid ground, but trying here would slip my feet from under me and land me face-first in muck.

  “Well, rich boy,” Grampi laughs meanly, “looks like your fancy-footing has failed you. This time you’ll really have to step in it.”

  I scowl. It’s not Grampi’s fault that doesn’t much remember me, that’s a card’s lot in life, but it still grates to hear abrasive dismissal from someone I so respect. I’ve won this conversation before, but he won’t hold onto my correction that I’m surveying the swamp in addition to checking my traps. There’s no point retreading old ground and hoping for new terrain, I tell myself, barely holding my tongue.

  “Not that you aren’t good at your little game. But it’s a little silly, and we’ll move faster once you stop diverting for sodden land.” Because of his guarding, Grampi himself has been wet to the ribs for a while now.

  My next step sinks in, mud to my thigh. The windswept surface is chill, and for the first time today my boots drop under that layer. If you stay immersed too long, your mind can trick you into thinking that below is warm. Coldest of all are the moments after you pull your leg out and wind takes its cut.

  A while after checking my next trap, I hear a squeak behind a mound to my left. Grampi glances dismissively, but I hold my arm out and roll my wrist to silently say “Circle.” He shrugs, sheathes his dagger, and wades beside me as I take a long arc around. Somehow, the larger man is quieter than I am. Someday, I want to be that sure-footed.

  From the side, we can see a three-foot rat gnawing on a large lizard. “What do you think?” I ask Grampi.

  “It’s a rat. Barely Mentioned if you capture it.”

  Yeah, but a good rat might be from a good nest. I have empty cards from merging my eel to Notable. What are the odds it has a nest worth investing in?”

  “Depends. If that rat’s the only interesting thing about the nest, it won’t even be Mentioned at all, the card still blank after you capture it. Even if you did, its contents wouldn’t be generous. What would you do with a bunch of ordinary rats? Looking for tribal bonuses for when you start taking Ratfolk for your deck?”

  I almost ruin our stealth by shouting at him, but hold my fists tight by my side instead. Accepting a person’s card is an honor, not something you take, but in war the rules are different. Grampi just hasn’t learned. “No. I do have an affinity for serpents, though, and you’ve mentioned the use of having a sacrifice generator if I lean into that for my deck.”

  Grampi hums. “If there’s a second rat that size nearby, and there’s months before you need the card to find another two such nests in, then capturing three such nests and merging them might be worthwhile. Otherwise, it’s a waste.”

  I take his words seriously. Do I want to commit to the serpent theme my card ability aids with now? Or should I trust that, years from now, skillful handling of serpents will be a small part of my story that doesn’t show up on my card?

  Choosing to keep my options open, I say, “If there’s another good rat, I’ll mark the location of the nest but not imbue a card in it yet. It’s worth knowing about, and if there is a rat summoner in the region who’d buy the card from me then maybe it’ll be worth carding anyway.”

  Grampi scoffs. “And is ‘mayhap’ worth sleuthing around for hours, trying to determine if there’s another rat then finding their nest in the bog? We should move on.”

  I smile. “Hours, no. But I’ve a card with Scout in my deck, so there’s little cost in returning once it’s ready to awaken.”

  Altering my course, I check my western traps first instead of going north to south as usual. I want to head straight to the Serpent Pool after summoning Bog Hawk. The pool’s energy is great for meditating and gaining serpent mana, but isn’t always safe. With no detours, I’ll only lose one turn from my usual perimeter check there by searching for the rat nest.

  Finding nothing else worth paying attention to in the next hour, we quickly return to where the rat had won its hunt. My deck is ready.

  For the first time in recent days, Bog Hawk is in my opening hand. Unfortunately, the other card is a Serpent mana card, and Bog Hawk is not a serpent. Using card fragments, too weak to hold a summon, as mana cards in your deck is a great cost-saver, but the fragments’ affinities are based off your own life experiences. Usually they align with the other cards in your deck, but sometimes you get unlucky.

  Next turn, I summon my hawk. Telling it to search for rodents finds me the nest and proves that there are more big rats besides. Since Grampi has Vigilance today, I don’t need to worry about not noticing a dangerous beast and running right by it. So I rush through the water, moving to the top of a hill with a good view of the Serpent Pool.

  Having eyes on the place will let me give better orders than look and see. I don’t expect to need the extra details, but it makes Grampi smile. He’s often told me that it’s never too early to build good habits.

  This time, it pays off. When Bog Hawk finishes its second scouting order, to find dangers near the pool, I have eyes on the area. Because of that, the scouting report doesn’t merely tell me that there’s a giant snake there. It helps me see with my own eyes which ordinary-seeming bumps in the terrain are actually moss lifted above water by the snake’s lazing scales.

  I’ve seen an ordinary large snake swallow a deer, surprising me with how wide its jaws were able to open. This one wouldn’t have to stretch. If it worked hard enough, it could swallow an elk. Beyond that, the Scouting tells me it is carded and alive. That means someone was reckless enough to empower a potential man-eater. Either they chose to walk away, loosing it on the bog on purpose, or they weren’t able to.

  Sabotage or tragedy, they abandoned a beast too dangerous to let live on the lands my family is responsible for. If it kills a traveler or one of the Ratfolk, they’ll blame us.