The undertaking of a careless man succeeds not, though he use the right expedients: a clever hunter, though well placed in ambush, kills not his quarry if he falls asleep. – Bharavi

Karl was scanning the area from atop the transport wagon to which he had been assigned.

At the outset, when the merchants had heard that pony guards would be accompanying them, they opted for protection from these guards, most likely because they trusted fellow ponies more than the mercenaries.

Following the dreadful failure of the guard at the battle against the Nāga, the merchants quickly rebounded from these sentiments.

Fortunately, Karl had been assigned to guard a wagon owned by an earth pony (which he doubted was a coincidence, given his reputation around magical creatures and object). The merchant chose to ignore Karl’s existence beyond the occasional suspicious glare to make sure he didn’t sneak up on him.

‘Like you could save yourself anyway.’ Karl thought, continuing to scan the area.

To be fair, he actually liked this a lot, seeing as he didn’t even need to walk.

Of course that happiness evaporated the moment he remembered he was also one of the easiest targets for enemy archers or slingers. Besides, he wasn’t completely off the hook: if the road needed to be repaired then he and some others were the ones that needed to do it.

Not to mention the fact that Locust was out in the front lines and a second ambush could happen at any moment.

In other words, he had more than enough on his mind.

Karl briefly looked around at the military transport that was behind them. If Titus spoke the truth, then that was where the Nāga girl was locked up. How Titus managed to give her the counteractive solution he didn’t know, but all that counted was that he’d succeeded.

“Hey Bea…uddy when do you think those big snakes will attack again?” The merchant asked.

Karl suppressed his snort at the failed save from the merchant, but decided to let it slide. If he was a beast in their eyes, at least they feared him. That had to be worth something.

“Don’t know. The entire swamp is a perfect ambush location, although I’m more concerned with pirates at this point. We’re nearing their hunting grounds now.”

The pony seemed content with his answer and decided to go back to ignoring Karl, which was absolutely fine.

The column continued without any hindrance until they reached a river. The members of the caravan called it Nyr.

This river presented the first major travel challenge thus far (excluding the ambush, that is). The plan was to fasten a rope in the ground on the near side of the shore then row a boat to the other side and connect the rope. The carts, which were designed to be semi-amphibious, would ride atop this rope to the far shore. Karl didn’t very much care for the idea, but just like any other grunt, his opinion was not exactly valued, so he didn’t really have any option other than to just roll with the idea.

The mercenaries gathered near one of the transports on which Adler stood.

“Okay men; you know the drill. The boat is already on its way to the other side, and we need to secure the location. This would be the perfect place for another ambush.

“Turok, take the second, third and fourth regiments and form a rear-guard. The rest of us will secure a bridgehead on the other side.” Adler ordered.

“Yes, sir!”

“Alright, you heard him! Two, three and four, move your asses over here!”

Karl and the twenty-six other men formed up in front of the minotaur.

“You all come with me!” Turok said as he walked away followed by his men.

They walked for a little while until he suddenly stopped and ordered them to form a defensive line.

“Now listen: if there’re any thickheads out there who don’t know what a rear-guard is, we’re going to be the ones who make sure that nasties don’t jump up everyone else’s ass.

Now in light of what’s happened so far it might seem a little late to do this now, but I think it might be a good idea for all of us to pray to a god of our choosing, namely to make our job easier and keep the Nāga off our backs.” The men cheered for their commander before taking in a position.

Karl stood still next to Zōlak who was apparently busy preparing his ritual. After a little while, Zōlak stopped and looked at Karl.

“You’re not praying?”

“Don’t really know who to pray to.” Karl admitted.

“You don’t have a god?” Zōlak asked, confused.

“I have a god, but I don’t exactly know if a human god is going to be much of a help in a land filled with snake men. I never really bought into religion that much anyway, but the way I look at it, if there is a god, he or she is only as powerful as the number of their worshippers. Seeing as I’m the only one of my kind here, I’m at kind of a disadvantage.”

“You could pray to Zandark, Lord of Swamps.” suggested Zōlak. “I personally prayed to Linara, the patron of Drakes, but I doubt that would do very much for a non-Drake. Zandark is also worshipped by the Skokak, so he should have a fair amount of power, in these swamps at least.”

Karl nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like the kind of guy I need.”

‘So I pray to our enemy’s god in order to hinder his own worshippers? Whatever. That’s not the weirdest thing I’ve encountered here.’ Karl thought to himself.

“So how do you pray to him? How does this work?”

Zōlak took a kind of wooden pendant out of his satchel, which was carved to look like a miniature mask, almost like the kind Native Americans would use.

“Put this on and repeat what I say.” Karl put the pendant on and Zōlak started mumbling something nearly incomprehensible, which Karl tried repeating to the best of his ability. It was similar to, but not quite the same as the language he’d heard the other Drake speaking at the heap of bodies after the battle. Different religion? Or was it a regional thing?

Karl just barely managed to repeat everything Zōlak had said and when the Drake was done, he gestured for Karl to give back the pendant.

“Is that it?” Karl asked as he handed Zōlak the pendant.

“Yes. Zandrak doesn’t always listen, but he’ll always be watching and judging in these places, so behave yourself as long as we’re in the swamp.”

‘Hm. A god that doesn’t listen? Isn’t that nice?’ Karl resisted the urge to say this out loud.

“Sure. I don’t want to piss off a god.”

“Spirit.”

“What’s that?”

“Zandrak isn’t really a god. He’s more of a spirit who lives in the swamps. He is said to be protector of Cáqash, Lord of Numdran and Ruler of Svárna.”

“What’re those last two?” Karl asked confused.

“Numdran is a gigantic swamp near the Forgotten Sea east of Everfree Island, west of Ti and north of the Echo. Svárna is, or rather, it *was* a city build by Lizard Beasts, my ancestors, that was unfortunately lost. It is said to be based upon a mythical troll city called Lipzaaq, which was the seat of power of the Lizard Beast warlord, one of the legendary Evolved.”

“You seem to know a lot about these Evolved. More than anyone else here, anyway.”

“You probably went to the wrong people. All the major races except the ponies have been created by the Evolved. Each race worships their own Evolved creators, so if you ask a Diamond dog about the Lizard Beast warlord you won’t get much useful information.”

“Okay that makes sense… I guess.” Karl replied as he watched the transports being ferried across.

The two of them stayed after that so as to better observe their environment

After a long time of looking at the swamp finally Karl heard the horn which signalled that the rear-guard was allowed to cross the river as well.

“Okay men, pick up the pace. The sooner we’re on the other side, the better.” Turok ordered as he signalled his soldiers to retreat towards the boats that were left behind for them.

They reached the other side without any trouble and for a brief second Karl allowed himself to sigh in relief before regaining his alert composure.

“I see that the Skôkak have kept themselves quiet so far.” Adler noted.

“Yeah, real quiet. A little too quiet if you don’t mind the cliché. What gives?”

“They’re just hoping that the pirates will drop our numbers so we’re easier prey for them later on. Both logical and disturbing as hell considering that it means they’re probably either preparing one giant bum rush of an attack or they’re setting up an entire string of ambushes for us. Neither is all that comforting.”

“Permission to speak freely sir?”

“Permission granted.”

“Why are we taking those military ponies with us? We’ve always kept our columns small for manoeuvrability, but a column this wide seems to be an unnecessary risk: we’ll be too clunky and too spread out. It’s like we’re begging for an attack.”

“I know that, but remember: we’re keeping those guards on the outside of the column, so they’ll be the first to take any attack. Only the merchants pay us for protection. Besides, they make excellent snake food.” Adler whispered in Turok’s ear, who grinned slightly at the thought of abandoning those stuck-up guard ponies to the Skôkak.

“I did hear that the Skôkak enjoy pony flesh, if the Cloppington disaster was anything to go by.”

Adler pulled back and smiled. “Yeah, those bones were pretty well picked over from what I remember. The pirates did most of the work and the Skôkak got a lot of free meat. ” With that said he turned around and left his second in command to monitor the men.

Karl and the others had taken their positions again mid-conversation, completely ignorant of what their two superiors had just discussed.

“How’s is the situation?” The merchant pony asked.

“We’re in the pirates’ territory now, so you don’t need to worry about the Skôkak until we’ve crossed the next river.” Karl replied, remembering the map Adler had shown him and the others, on which the territories of both the pirates and the Skôkak were roughly indicated.

“Bucking great.” The merchant mumbled before shutting up again, for which Karl was grateful.

The merchant didn’t like Karl at all, but at the least he didn’t bitch and whine like the other three. Karl was certain that the earth pony, while still a total a douche, at least did some work, where the rest just kind of sat on their asses while lackeys did their work. He was surprised such types actually joined this journey, but he guessed that they had their reasons.

The column started moving again a couple of minutes later when everyone was back in position, heading deeper into the pirate land.

For the next few of hours everything went as smooth as the rest of the day until they reached a path past a hill. Karl heard something that sounded like something was rolling, and when he looked up to the hill, he was just in time to see a tree trunk roll over a ridge and crush the transport in front his.

The men on top were crushed, but as the transport was at least a little bit reinforced, it managed to stay in one piece for the most part. The wheels were completely shot and most of the roof was caved in, but unless there was anything extremely breakable in that carriage, Karl guessed it was still in decent condition.

However, the now-immobile cart made an excellent blockade for all the transports behind it as the road was too narrow to move around it. Karl and the earth pony merchant jumped off of their carriage, just in time to dodge a rain of arrows which came falling down upon the column.

‘Jeez. That’s two close calls. Maybe that prayer thing actually worked.’

“Take cover!” He heard the commanding officers bark to their troops as they themselves headed for cover form the deadly rain of projectiles. Karl pressed himself tightly against the carriage with his shield covering both him and the merchant alongside some other mercenaries with the same idea.

Karl heard a sound which sounded like a battle cry as the pirates hurled what looked like Molotov cocktails down at the caravan. Karl saw some of the flaming projectiles burst upon the road, carriages, shields and, unfortunately, men, although most of the affected were ponies as they didn’t have shields like the mercenaries.

With a loud ‘THUD’ Karl felt one of the bottles fall upon his shield, breaking and splattering the flaming liquid within. The shield wasn’t the best protection, but at least he and the others weren’t sprayed by the flames. Instead, it flowed off of his shield and onto the ground near their, or more specifically, his feet.

Karl and the others had barely recovered from the little present when they heard a screeching which sounded not unlike Adler, quickly followed by gryphon shadows speeding across the ground.

The mercenaries on Karl’s right and left suddenly fell down, grunting in pain as a huge stone was suddenly dropped on top of their shields, splintering their arms. Karl and the others tried to shelter their fallen comrades.

“Archers; get those gryphons off our backs!” Karl heard someone yell, most likely the pony commander, followed by the whistling of arrows and a pained scream, followed by two or three dull thuds.

Turok and a clump of mercenaries headed past Karl signalling them to follow.

“Listen up! We’re going to try and flank those pirates. We need to drive them off of the high ground if we want to stand a chance.” Nothing more was said as the minotaur led his troops up the hill.

The mercenaries formed as the pirates send over some archers and infantry to counteract their flanking manoeuvre. The pirates were a mix of nearly all the races Karl had seen so far: ponies, Diamond Dogs, griffins, minotaur, everything.

“Testudo!” Turok yelled, the men immediately getting into formation, shielding them from the incoming barrage of arrows.

“Pilum!”

Everyone grabbed his first pilum, aimed and threw, killing a few enemy archers and other pirates before reforming the testudo as quick as possible and advancing.

The pirates tried to break the formation by throwing some Molotovs, which forced some men to adjust their path or else walk through the fire.

“Charge!”

Everyone rushed the pirates. The few casualties that the archers could and would score would be worth the victory. The arrows weren’t very effective against the shields, but still managed to hit two men. Whether they died or were wounded was something Karl couldn’t see as he kept charging the pirates, who by now started to retreat, not liking their chances in close-quarter combat.

By now the main ambush force had noticed the new threat and started falling back, former defeats at the hands of the-well trained mercenaries still too fresh in their minds.

The pirates were more lightly armed so they could move faster than the mercenaries, but not fast enough to escape the range of the pilum. After a last devastating batch of pilae ripping into their ranks, the pirates beat a hasty retreat into the dense vegetation.

“Okay men; I think we taught those pirates a lesson. Let’s just see how long they keep that lesson at heart.” Turok complimented his men.

After setting up a defensive line around the column, he headed over to Adler to discuss their next plans.

The column set up camp there, as there was too little daylight left to both repair the damage done by the ambush and search for a better location. The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed than on the day before, the successful fight having brought back the morale of the men.

Deep in the back of Karl’s mind he knew that they hadn’t seen the last or even the worst from the Skôkak or the pirates yet, but for the moment, the semi-safety was sufficient to let him relax as he ate some over-salted meat and a couple of rock-hard biscuits that you were supposed to make softer by mixing them with water and an apple. Not the greatest meal, but it was enough to keep him going, given the circumstances.

“What a day, huh?” He heard a voice say from behind him and he looked at where the voice came from.

“Titus. So you’re still alive.”

“A couple of pirates aren’t killing me now, not when I came so far already. Besides, who else could sneak into that pony transport and give our Nāga friend her medicine?”

“Touché. Still, how are you doing?”

“Besides almost getting an arrow in my neck and a fireball dropped on my head, just dandy. You?”

“Same, except I almost got a freakin’ boulder dropped on me.”

“Seems I got the lucky straw.”

“If you could call it that. Have you seen Locust by any chance?”

“The Changeling? No, not really. ‘S probably buzzing around somewhere.”

“That’s not exactly comforting.” Karl replied, slightly irked.

“He’s probably keeping a low profile with all these ponies.”

“You think they’re going to apprehend him?”

“I don’t think so, not if they don’t want to be killed off. Adler is getting pissed off at those ponies for fucking nearly everything up. If they try to detain one of his soldiers I believe he will gladly help you free him… still, Locust’s had a long history of being chased down by ponies, so he’s still probably a bit skittish.”

“I’d love to see that beat-down, although I hope it doesn’t happen in here: those ponies are fools, but fools that can be used as an excellent meat shields if the situation requires it.”

It was a shared thought among the mercenaries that Karl voiced.

Titus nodded in agreement. “Yeah I don’t like ponies, but we wouldn’t really gain anything by letting them get killed. We need all the help we can get, no matter how half-brained: the Skôkak are up to something big even if they’ve only sent a small fighting force at us.”

“They’re demoralising and testing the soldiers to see who are the weakest and who are the strongest fighters before letting the pirates thin out our ranks. Then we’ll get the big surprise.”

Titus nodded sombrely at how Karl summed it up.

“Which brings me to my next question: how do we get out of this swamp alive with the Nāga woman and the artefact?”

“I don’t know. It all depends on how the situation is by the end of the week, but I suggest we beat it as soon as we get a chance after crossing the Ynnyk… that’s the next river. It’s healthier for her and safer for us to slip away from the group before the real fighting begins.”

“I doubt that safer part, but I do see the logic in it… How is she anyway?” Karl asked, curious and secretly also worried for her health.

“She’s stable for now, but only the gods know how long that’ll last. Like I said, we’re playing a pretty dangerous game with her health. Her environment is still relatively sterile, but I doubt that’ll last much longer: those ponies have no decency at all. What they do to these Nāga is only acceptable for criminals and scum of the worst kind, not for an innocent girl.

“I don’t know what they give her for food, so I can’t judge on that, but they keep her chained to the bottom of the aquarium almost twenty-four hours a day, so I doubt she’ll be in good physical condition conditions with the lack of movement, not to mention her mental state. I’m giving her injections to keep her awake and clear while they’re giving her sedatives to keep her complacent, so the longer we keep blasting her system with chemicals, the worse her health is going to get. This can’t go on much longer.”

Karl had the urge to massacre some ponies and immediately put an end to her suffering, but he quickly pressed down his emotions.

‘For everything there is a time and a place. You’ll just have to wait.’ He chided himself.
“Alright: the first chance we get after we cross the Ynnyk. Got it.”

“Good. It’s not going to be easy, but if everything goes just right, then we just might be safer than if we stick with the convoy.”

With that, Titus stood up and left Karl behind to brood.

Author's Note

Greetings everyone!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter and just like always I would like to ask that you give the story some support.

I am happy to see the story has managed to gain already as much support as it did and I hope it will just keep growing.

Thank you all! Please give some support and I will be sure to get you guys more.

Author: TheShadowOfZama
Editor: Vlasislas32