FANTASY | ADVENTURE | PULP | LGBTQ | ILLUSTRATED
Secret of the Swamp Hag
In the Khaimeign’s perilous swamp, Sinru and Saan face off against a malevolent Swamp Hag. Despite Sinru’s indomitable strength and Saan’s unexpected power, friendship remains their greatest weapon against adversity.
The world knew him as the Barbarian. Some called him ‘thief’ and ‘slayer.’ Others called him ‘hero.’ One called him ‘father.’ She was Sinru, product of a drunken night the Barbarian spent in a nameless village before he wandered to lands far away. Sinru grew up strong and willful, angry and hedonistic. When the masters of empire burned her village and took her mother, she, too, wandered. She came into the world like a storm — dark-eyed, cursed, ravenous — to challenge the powers on earth and defy the dominion of demons.
The arrival of autumn in the swampy lowlands of the Khaimeign heralded a sky of weeping grays. It was a season of incessant rains, weaving glistening threads through verdant forests of hemlock and pine.
But the cool rains weren’t the only visitors. Autumn brought pangs of hunger for travelers as herds migrated into the drier highlands, leaving scant sustenance — mostly frogs and insects, or birds and fish for the lucky.
Sinru wasn’t lucky.
She yearned for a meal only silver could buy. A flank of mutton or deer. Some beef or elk. She wiped saliva from her lips. Her desire for a decent meal had driven her to follow servants of the local warlord, hoping to pilfer their coin.
She straightened her horsehair mustache and buttoned her rider’s cloak. The disguise offered her entry into rough company, since a woman with no chaperone risked a beating or rape. In the lands of the Dragaard, a woman claimed by no man could be claimed by any.
Once inside the dimly lit tavern, Sinru slid her last tarnished copper across the wooden counter, acquiring a tumbler of ale in turn. With her drink in hand, she positioned herself to watch the spectacle across the room.
Four men stinking of corruption and the swamp engaged in a game of dice on a creaky table. Whores draped themselves over their laps, savoring swigs of the men’s ale.
“Call your number!” barked the portly one, his rounded belly straining against his well-stitched but timeworn vest. When he lifted his cup to reveal his dice, the faces favored his foe. He shrugged off the loss. With a smile he ordered his guard to give him more silver from the purse on his belt.
Sinru watched the exchange as her belly growled and hunger clouded her thoughts. Taking the fat man’s silver would require cunning, especially while it was fastened to the belt of an armed guard.
Some distance from the tavern and hidden among the thick canopy of trees, a beautiful young blonde languished. Saan often found herself awaiting the fallout from one of Sinru’s schemes. She had been traveling with Sinru for over a year, and life had become absurd. It wasn’t the brutish land as much as the curses.
In addition to a fierce disposition and talented sword, Sinru’s barbarian father had bequeathed her the enmity of powerful creatures. Throughout his legendary life, Sinru’s father had made enemies of countless evil mages, demons, and even gods. When he was no longer around to receive their vengeance, his daughter was.
Saan knew of five curses, but she suspected there were more. One was particularly problematic because it manifested in her own body.
She tired of the cycle of her breasts growing so large they erupted from her bodice like too much dough. Sometimes, it was her hips that grew, or her hair would give up its golden curls to become as straight and black as Sinru’s. Once, her lips took on a strange plumpness. All-in-all, Saan knew more about her best friend’s lustful fantasies than she wanted to.
She knew her body would return to its simple shape when Sinru found an outlet for her desire. She also knew her irritation would disappear as soon as Sinru returned. More than anything, Saan hated to be alone. And she loved Sinru. Not in the way Sinru might wish, but much more than Sinru knew.
Saan peaked out from a tangle of brush and saw more horsemen appear on the narrow dirt road. As she watched them swagger into the tavern, an idea came to her, one she knew Sinru would forbid.
But Sinru was nowhere in sight.
Before Sinru settled on a plan to cut and run with the silver, more horsemen threw open the tavern door. These men were minions of the region’s infamous warlord who built his reputation with butchery and cutthroat opportunism.
The largest rogue approached the table with menace. “The lord wants you, Cap’n. He’s got questions ‘bout where ya been.”
For a fleeting moment, Sinru weighed the possibility of sparking a brawl as a diversion. She considered the odds, but then she considered Saan. Saan always required her own consideration.
Saan wasn’t a fighter. Nor was her god. In fact, as gods went, Saan’s offered little of interest to Sinru. He was a god of love, but not the useful kind with temples that offered prostitutes.
The slick metal slide of a sword preceded the leader adding, “I’m bringing ya to him one way er other.”
“Hahaha!” laughed the fat man. “Whatever fantasies my brother has dreamed up this time will have to wait. I won’t leave silver on the table.”
As tension escalated, the tavern’s whores and the grizzled bartender stepped back into the safety of the shadows. Sinru followed. She decided she needed to reach Saan before violence spilled beyond the tavern. She slipped through the door and disappeared into the night.
Stopping for a moment, she gazed at the men’s horses, their thick bodies glistening under the moonlight. She licked her lips but dashed off. She certainly didn’t need a bounty on her head for stealing a horse.
As she wandered through the forest, she grew angry.
It wasn’t just the incessant hunger. Or the relentless cold. Or the constant wet. Or even the lack of wet, which was also becoming a problem. Hedonistic drives were just another of the curses she had learned to live with. What made her most angry was trying to protect Saan and herself without killing anyone in a land that made every man her enemy.
And now, Saan was missing.
Sinru continued through the trees, but when she found no sign of Saan, she found a spot to sit and perform the sort of body maintenance her cursed life required. She tossed her left boot aside and unwound the cloth on her foot. Her toe was already loose. It would eventually drop off and grow back, so she pulled it free. She sat staring at it glumly before she popped it in her mouth.
The muted squelch of hoofbeats in the mud drew her alarm. As she leapt to her feet, she saw Saan slip down from a horse.
“What the hell, Saan!” Sinru stabbed an accusing hand at her best friend. “A horse? You stole a horse? We already have a Swamp Hag following us, and now we’re going to have the warlord, too?”
“Maybe we’ll be lucky, and they won’t even know what happened.”
Thunder rolled and rain began to pelt down. Sinru looked skyward as cold drops hit her face. “When have we ever been lucky?”
They sat down, and Saan drew her cloak over their heads. “You’re cranky.”
“I’d be less cranky if I had something to eat besides bugs. Or if I had a dry bed. Or just a bed at all. Or sunshine. That would be nice. Or a bath. A warm bath with a woman waiting for me.”
Saan hugged Sinru and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. “We’ll get you all those things. I promise.”
Sinru returned the hug with a smile.
“I found some berries.” Saan pulled a handful from her pocket. “Want a few?”
“So I can puke all night?”
Saan shrugged. “Let’s get some sleep. You can dream of meat, ale, and women — all your favorite things.”
“You better hope not.” Sinru glanced at Saan’s chest and then away. “They’ll just be bigger in the morning.”
“Hell, Sin, they can’t get any bigger.” Saan snuggled under Sinru’s arm. “Hold me, I’m cold.”
Sinru relaxed against the tree. Sleep would be elusive as it always was. She was hungry all over. She was hungry for food and tried not to think how tasty the horse might be. She was hungry for sex and tried not to think how tasty Saan might be.
She didn’t like to think of Saan that way. Only in her most frustrated moments did her thoughts cross the boundary that was clear to both of them. And she abhorred how her desires changed Saan’s body. If she could ferret out the mage with such perverse humor, she would slice him to pieces.
She glanced at the idle skeletons and rotting corpses scattered at random distances. Some faced her. Most had their arms. Some didn’t. One had no head. He’d been with her the longest. She nodded at him and smiled at her joke, wondering where his head might be. She was twelve when she hacked apart the man who had led the empire to her village.
This undead entourage was another of her curses. The men she killed were tethered to her forever. Each one eventually showed up to silently and slowly decompose as he trod the world behind her.
She didn’t regret her wrath, but she had to stop killing. Entering towns trailed by a horde of corpses limited her chances of finishing her ale or enticing a woman into her bed.
As dawn broke, Sinru awoke slowly. The earthy rot of the swamp was her first breath, but sweet lilacs followed. She squeezed Saan, amazed that the smell of decay and the sour stink of sweat never clung to her. Sinru assumed it was a gift from Saan’s god.
A thick fog settled over the lowlands and trees shivered under a heavy mist, but Sinru was uncomfortably warm. She sat up to strip off her sleep shirt but reached for her sword without thinking. Only when her hand tightened around the hilt did she realize her instincts were alert. No birds chirped. No insects buzzed. No frogs croaked.
It was then, from the murky fog, a frightening cackle arose.
An ancient woman stepped from the veiled gloom. Ragged black rags swathed her hunched, gray body like a second skin. Her eyes were empty pits but somehow suggested a cruelty that was all too intelligent.
The Swamp Hag had found them again.
Saan and Sinru were on their feet quickly. Sinru pushed Saan behind her bracing for a rope of magic to reach out and choke her like before. The Hag was still missing an arm from that encounter.
No magic reached out.
Instead, the crone’s one hand, gnarled like ancient tree roots, twitched and ignited a swirl of black energy. She spoke an incantation, her voice raspy, and then one-by-one, the skeletons shuddered. Their hollow eye sockets began to glow dimly, like green moons. They all turned to face Sinru.
Sinru glanced from one dead thing to another. Her entourage had never turned on her before.
“Saan, now would be a good time to talk to your god,” she called over her shoulder.
“He didn’t help before.”
“He’s never helped, but try something!”
The first of the uncanny skeletons lunged at Sinru, its bones clacking against the hushed forest morning.
She leapt aside with feline agility, her hard leather boots splashing and skidding across slick moss. She swung her heavy sword, severing the skeleton’s arm. The impact shuddered down the length of her weapon.
The skeleton, though lacking sinew and muscle, recoiled as bones dropped from its shoulder. But her moment of triumph was short-lived. Emerging from the spectral gloom, the rest of the undead closed in, their broken teeth grinning with silent menace.
The odds were overwhelming, but Sinru stood her ground. The worn grip of her sword’s hilt was a comforting familiarity. After drawing in a long, deep breath of fetid swamp air, she charged.
She snaked amidst the clattering bones, her sword a blur of gleaming steel. She was everywhere and nowhere, an embodiment of primal fury and passion. Her swings were precise, her dodges, nimble. Each impact was echoed with crunching bone and shrieking metal.
Meanwhile, Saan stood frozen, her heart pounding like a drum. Watching Sinru’s desperate battle fueled her fear. All she knew were the love spells of her deity, a benign force of compassion useless in this grim landscape.
In the past, she had pleaded for weapons or a timely intervention, but each plea had been met with silence. She steeled herself, her fingers clasping together as she began to chant. Her voice whispered beneath the cacophony, invoking the sacred name of her god in fervent desperation.
She pleaded, demanded, felt hot tears at the corners of her eyes.
Becoming an acolyte had been no easy task, and she wore the crescent moon tattoo of dedication on her cheek. She had served faithfully for three years, after having heard Katan’s call as a girl. She was grateful for the tutelage of a village elder, but she longed for a full community; only the large cities of the coast had temples to Katan. As she recalled all the days of Katan’s silence, she now demanded to be heard, to be cared about. It wasn’t just for her life but for Sinru, who deserved so much more than what fate had given her.
As she continued to chant, the air pulsated, and a pink fog arose. The ethereal aura circled the livid pallor of their undead adversaries.
She had begged for a tool of destruction that could turn the tide, but the divine response was unexpected. From the tangled muck beneath her feet, a lush field of roses erupted into life. Stark red petals unfurled and seemed to reach for the hovering mist. As the flowers overran the murky swamp, an intoxicating fragrance followed, and the medley of sweetness and earthy warmth eased the stench of decay.
Battling two skeletons, Sinru shouted, “Roses, Saan? Seriously?”
“I’m trying!” cried Saan.
The stump of a boney wrist cracked against Sinru’s cheek, stunning her for a moment before she severed the offending arm at the elbow. Her muscles tightened beneath her weather-beaten skin as she hefted her sword again.
She gritted her teeth, tasting her own blood and the threat of loss. She kept herself between Saan and the deadly army.
Over my dead body, she kept telling herself.
Every skeletal warrior she struck down soon rose again, their fingers grasping for her. Sharp bone sliced her skin. Blunt bone bruised. The onslaught was relentless. She had seconds to react to each strike, and horrors shouted in her mind. She remembered losing her mother. She imagined losing Saan.
Bone-cold fingers tangled themselves in her hair and dragged her to her knees. When she feared she might not rise again, she shouted, “Run, Saan! Get out of here!”
But Saan maintained her desperate appeal, and soon, the captivating scent of the rose field wove its way through the chaos and reached the foul Hag.
A ripple of curiosity eased her grotesque grimace. She took a prolonged breath, drawing in the floral symphony. The scent seemed to soften her. Two small white orbs swelled into her empty eye sockets and flickered like candles in the darkness.
Maybe the scent took her back to a time when she was a maiden strolling hand-in-hand with a handsome suitor. Or perhaps it transported her to her days as a mother as she tended a garden alongside her beloved child. Whatever memories the fragrant bouquet stirred, her ironclad control over the spell faltered. The strings of her puppeteer’s control failed.
The undead army returned to their idle stance. Seizing the opportunity, Sinru lunged forward. She charged the Hag, who was motionless and entranced.
Sinru landed two fierce blows, hacking the Hag’s neck, and finally decapitating the monstrosity. The contorted body crumbled, spinning into ash, and dispersing into the fog.
Sinru fell to her knees panting. She turned to Saan, who stood in the luxuriant field wringing her hands.
“Oh Sin! Sometimes I think I’m just another burden for you.”
Sinru sheathed her sword and went to Saan. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“He gave me flowers!”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Sinru groaned from the pain of her bruised bones as Saan used the corner of her cloak to wipe blood from Sinru’s arm.
“We were just lucky,” said Saan.
Sinru laughed. “When have we ever been lucky?” She stepped back, her eyes suddenly bright with a happy thought. “But if we’re starting now, maybe we can catch some fish.”
Sinru ate slugs for dinner.
They woke early but neither was in a hurry to rise. Sinru still ached from the damage inflicted by the skeletons, and Saan lay wondering about the strange help from her god.
“I doubt flowers will work every time,” muttered Saan.
Sinru wasn’t one to question good fortune. She shrugged and stood up. “Let’s see how much swamp we can get through today.”
After they had packed, Sinru’s hand came down in a swift arc, landing a firm swat on the horse’s hindquarters. With a start, the animal cantered off into the gloom of the forest.
Saan stood nearby, shaking her head in disbelief as she watched her shrewd act of theft come to nothing.
They picked their way through the dense woodland, their path meandering beneath the canopy of towering trees. Leaves rustled as the wind whispered through them, and as the day wore on, the cool air began to take on more chill. When daylight waned, an ethereal twilight descended, and they found a small rise.
Saan spread her waxed canvas cloak on the moss. They huddled together under Sinru’s heavier woolen cloak. Their muscles ached and spirits flagged. Nestled together under the shared warmth, they found solace.
As Sinru closed her eyes and adjusted Saan’s body against hers for warmth, the low growl of her belly rumbled, echoing the rolling thunder in the distance. The handful of grubs she had found didn’t satisfy, and she couldn’t share the berries Saan found because some demon or god or evil mage made her vomit any plant she ate.
Her mind ventured back to the horse. She should have butchered it. Its flesh, rich and succulent, could have fed them for days.
She shifted her gaze back to the reassembled dead. Although a few had been broken apart by her sword during the fight with the Swamp Hag, they had returned as silent observers like they always did. The once-men, forever damned to keep her company, stared back with hollow sockets.
Hunger, pain, constant fear. It’s no way to live, she despaired. And always the skeletons.
She drew closer to Saan, who was peaceful in her slumber. Saan deserved more than the life they were living. Sinru wanted to get her to the coast, to a temple where she could serve her god and live a safe, peaceful life.
A thought came to her, and hope followed as she realized what the Hag had done.
Sinru excitedly whispered to herself, “Yes!”
Saan stirred next to her. “Sin? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
Sinru tucked her cloak around Saan and left for the trees. Her skeletal entourage trailed behind, the headless one leading. She found a nearby creek overflowing with the recent rain.
Years before, when one and then another and another corpse had shown up, she had tried everything to rid herself of them: smashing them to pieces, outrunning them, climbing, swimming. Her efforts gave her peace for a time, but the skeletons always reassembled and inevitably found her.
However, she had never tried to talk to them.
She walked up to the headless one. Over the sound of running water, she demanded, “Find fish. Bring it to me.”
The skeleton didn’t move. She stepped closer to the water, pointed, and said, “Catch fish. Bring it to me.”
Again, the skeleton remained motionless. Frustrated, she shoved it. It stumbled back, bones clacking. She wondered at the power that kept bare bones connected and a soulless creature animated.
She glanced at the other corpses, chose one with some meat on its chest and one eye, and repeated, “Catch fish. Bring it to me.”
To her amazement, the corpse shuffled into the water with an eerie agility. She watched as it stabbed the water, its bony fingers spearing a wriggling creature. The sight of erupting fish guts filled her with joy.
Soon, three shiny bass lay at her feet. Her mouth watered at the sight, her stomach growling even louder in anticipation. She laughed, the joyous sound echoing off the trees.
“Sin?” Saan emerged from the forest, her eyes wide at the sight of the skeleton returning from the water with another fish.
Sinru looked at Saan, a triumphant smile spreading across her face. “Dinner is served.” She picked up a fish. “Well, after I get a fire going.”
As she ate a filling meal that night, Sinru reflected on life with Saan.
Travel would still be brutal, but they would eat better as they journeyed to the coast, where Saan’s hope to find devoted service and Sinru’s hope to find easy women awaited them.
