Ashborn – Chapter 5: Mud, Blood and Bone

  The wind carried the scent of mud and rot long before the land changed.

  The grass here had grown thin, the earth patchy and bruised with dark puddles that never fully dried. A haze of golden gnats swirled above sluggish pools, and beyond them stretched the swamp itself—still distant, but unmistakable. From here, the southern mire looked like a fortress of warped trees and crooked shadows, too quiet for any ordinary wild.

  Minna adjusted the weight of her satchel, boots squelching lightly in the softening ground. She squinted toward the horizon where the trees grew in chaotic spirals. Her pulse quickened—not in fear, but anticipation. They were close.

  “Hold!” someone whispered sharply ahead.

  Minna froze.

  A hand went up from one of the guards—a veteran named Corven, his face locked in a pale expression. Others began creeping closer to see what had stopped him, brushing back reeds and tall yellow grass that swayed lazily.

  Then they saw it.

  Not fifty royal strides ahead, half-veiled by mist and overgrown shrubs, something moved. Something massive.

  A shape like a hill shifted—slowly, like the land itself was standing up.

  First came the mossy hump of its back, rising above the pools. Then a long, knotted neck stretched upward, unfurling like a curling bridge of stone. It blinked—just once—huge eyelids sluggish and weary. Long strands of muck fell from its jaw like wet tapestry.

  The Mireback Colossar standing at 18 cubits tall.

  It had stepped from the edge of legend into the edge of their world.

  Gasps escaped unbidden. One of the scribes dropped his scroll tube. Even the horses, usually drowsy from the heat, reared slightly, hooves rustling in protest.

  The creature turned its head—slowly, groggily—toward the group.

  Not with aggression.

  With surprise.

  As if it, too, had never expected to see humans in this place.

  Minna’s breath caught in her throat. Her fingers trembled as they found the spine of her journal. It’s real. Every obscure mention in forbidden tomes, every hushed swamp chant whispered by outcast wanderers—it was real.

  “This isn’t where they live,” she whispered aloud. “They dwell far deeper. Weeks deeper.”

  The Colossar shifted its stance. Every movement sent ripples across the soft ground. Moss and dangling vines swayed from its ribbed flanks. It didn’t roar. It didn’t charge. It simply trudged, slow and tired, toward a still, black pool half-shadowed by bent trees.

  Its limbs moved with ponderous grace—first one foreleg, then the rear. Its feet sank knee-deep into the muck and emerged with wet sounds like the sighing of the earth. The tail dragged behind it, stirring a procession of startled frogs and clouded silt.

  Minna watched in silence as the beast lowered its long neck. With a huff of effort, it extended its snout to the water and drank.

  Deep, echoing pulls of breath and water followed.

  It looked exhausted.

  Not just tired from travel—worn.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Patches of its natural moss covering were torn, exposing thick hide beneath. Its right shoulder bore a long streak of dried blood turned black. And something—something—had cracked one of the plated knobs along its spine.

  Corven began gesturing wildly to the others.

  No words. Just flat palms and stabbing fingers: Back. Quiet. Now.

  The group obeyed with the sluggish precision of a dream.

  Boots dragging softly. Scrolls clutched tighter. One guard murmured to a jittering horse, another held the reins of a second to keep it from bolting. The group moved like a slow current—retreating gently without disturbing the surface.

  Minna’s eyes never left the creature.

  Then came the noise. An unknown clicking and clacking.

  It drifted from the east, where the flatlands met the swamp. A sound like stone grinding under wet leaves—low, distant, unnatural.

  The Colossar paused mid-drink.

  Its head rose slowly. Water spilled from its slack jaws. Then it turned—not toward them, but toward the sound. Its muscles rippled beneath its sagging, mud-caked skin.

  And for the first time, Minna saw something else in its massive eyes.

  Fear.

  The sound came low at first—like drumming thunder beneath the earth. Then it split the stillness.

  Minna turned sharply toward the open field, heart already thudding, a chill rising over her skin. The Mireback Colossus, still crouched at the water’s edge, jerked its head toward the sound and let out a long, deep bellow, not of warning—but fear.

  From the shadows just beyond the low hillocks bordering the swamp, four shapes broke into the open. Swift. Awful. Beautiful in their monstrous coordination.

  Dreadmaw Striders.

  Minna froze. Her mind fought for explanation, context, anything. She knew the name. Knew sketches in obscure bestiaries. But even those hinted at exaggeration. She had never seen one in life. No one in the expedition had.

  Yet here they came—four in total, low and long-legged, sprinting at terrifying speed. They moved like pack-hunters, their clawed feet kicking up dirt, their bodies a mottled pattern of cream, brown, and streaks of dark blue that shimmered faintly under the early light of Velmora. Their lizard-like faces were locked forward, eyes glinting like cold metal, mouths open in wild anticipation, tongues lolling like they were drunk on the hunt.

  Minna's lips parted in realization. “They're not wandering,” she whispered. “They've been tracking it. Hunting it.”

  The Colossus trumpeted in panic and—surging forward—sprinted directly toward the expedition.

  The world erupted.

  “BACK! BACK—!” someone shouted.

  “MOVE THE HORSES!” another screamed.

  But it was too late. The horses shrieked and broke free from their ties, galloping wildly in every direction. Some bolted into the swamp, some tangled in reins and overturned carts. One fell mid-run, snapping a leg.

  Guards scrambled to form some kind of wall, but they were little more than sticks before a storm. The Colossus charged blindly, eyes fixed behind it, barely aware of the fragile beings in its path.

  Minna staggered as wind and mud battered her. She spotted a hollow stump—a fat, half-rotted thing ringed with shelf fungus. She lunged toward it, diving inside as the ground shuddered from the beast’s footfalls.

  The Colossus barreled through the camp, its massive tail knocking aside wagons, tents, and men like they were leaves. The first Dreadmaw leapt, landing on the beast’s back with hooked claws, driving them into the soft moss-streaked hide. The second followed. Then the third and fourth.

  From within the stump, Minna could see everything through a crack in the bark.

  The pack ripped into the Mireback, talons carving deep furrows in its long neck and sides, jaws latching and tearing, each strider coordinated in brutality. The Colossus screamed and thrashed, sending guards flying. Its legs faltered, crashing into a cluster of scholars who had frozen mid-sprint—flattening them in a single, horrifying second.

  One dreadmaw pounced toward a fleeing guard, its scream high and birdlike, and tore the man in half mid-run. Another one bit down on a horse’s flank, dragging it screaming to the ground.

  Blood. Screams. The crack of bones. The scent of churned mud and hot gore.

  Minna, breathless and curled tight, began to weep silently.

  One of the Colossus’s massive legs buckled, and as it crashed sideways, its long, muscle-thick tail whipped out in one final spasm.

  It struck the stump.

  Minna felt herself flung like a doll into the air—then nothing.

  ---

  She woke to flies and the buzz of gloamwings overhead.

  Pain seared her left arm—it hung at an unnatural angle. Broken.

  The light had shifted. Velmora was low now. The third moon - Elystra- cast a green glow that was creeping faintly on the horizon. Minna blinked and sat up slowly, gasping, trying to push off the sticky ground with her good hand.

  The field was a slaughterhouse.

  Bodies were everywhere. Scholars with squashed bodies, cracked open. Guards in pieces. Some had been dragged—trails of blood led toward the swamp, ending in silence.

  One of the dreadmaws lay dead nearby, its flank bruised and bleeding—possibly by the Colossus's final defiance. But the other three? Gone.

  And the Mireback Colossus was barely recognizable—half-eaten, ribs exposed, flies swarming. Its mossy hide had been peeled back like bark. The ground around it was red and black and steaming.

  Minna pulled herself out under the tree truck she hid in and screamed softly through clenched teeth.

  She was alone. Alive. And in the mouth of the swamp.