i depress me sometimes... bummer

after the disappointment in the Teutoburg, we made for Rittersburg, a town under the limes gigantes mountains. i'd heard of a Rittersburg coffin worm once from a bard's mouth, and never its slaying. the Swab jaegers continued in my company, eager for the promised spoils.
we made camp at the edge of the fens, pitching tents on a grassy flat open to the sun and gnats. i sent out a party of foragers and in the meantime inspected my gunnes. two falconets lent by the Prince-Elector at a generous price, and my own minion, sat at the north edge of in their carriages. i ordered the barrels cleaned and checked the powder myself while the men set to with rags and oil. one of the caskets had fallen into a stream on the way, and i pried it open. it was ruined, but the others remained dry. next, i ordered the men to attend to their muskets. i hoped they would be unnecessary, but i've heard of dragons that made it to the line with culverin shot in their belly and still made a mess of everything.
the foragers returned in the evening with two pounds of blackberries, as well as cheese, bread, and salted pork from nearby freeholders. as for the beer, i relented and let them all have an extra pint apiece. it's good to give the men a little cheer. myself, i had port and bacon, but jacques also gave me a handful of blackberries from his own hand. it was stained red with the juices.
i accused him of iniquity, and he jovially assented. "picked the forbidden fruits, we did--and thou adam tasting it from me eve," he said.
"go play your flageolet," i told him, and he did as the others lit fires and wrapped gunnes in oilcloth to keep out the damp.
that night passed easy, as is the case in every new place men find themselves in. after years in the same hovel, a serf is overjoyed to go beyond the bounds of his village, and the professional soldiers and knaves are already pathological wanderers. for myself i listened to jacques' flute-play and the Swabs' gutsy folk songs. the noise echoed in the fens, over the stinking muds and empty trees. i imagined that it sucked hungrily at our sounds and drowned them in itself, a void wilderness yearning for civilization. in the end the insects' drone won out as the Swabs retired and jacques put away his flageolet to stare into the embers. i joined him.
"they want this thing done," he said.
"i want it done. and here it will be." i stared into the swamp. will-o'-the-wisps gathered in the night, bobbing like lanterns. "they feed on fear," i said.
jacques nodded.

in the morning i went around the freeholders with jacques and five Swabs and asked about the worm. they pointed me to henry forester. we gathered at the well and waited, accosting men who came as to their names. at noon, a knot of men in common clothes drew up. a tall red head stood out amid the crowd, a bowstaff over his shoulder.

he spoke, and jacques translated. 'this is the forester,' jacques said. 'he wants to know what you would with him.'

'ask him about the coffin worm,' i said.

i listened as jacques translated and watched the man's face. he looked at me when he spoke, and often stopped to cross his arms and stare.

jacques translated: 'he says he's seen it several times. once he happened on it in the midst of gorging on a shepherd and his flock. he says he grabbed what sheep he could and sold them to the next shepherd passing through. the worm never bothered him, only gorged. he says it swallowed sheep whole, still bleating.' at this point the forester indicated the bowstaff. 'its jaws opened like that,' jacques said.

'right. where did this happen? where else has he seen it?'

'at the bend in the river with the dead oaks and the sandbar. he can take you there. he also says he spent a week with the beast in its lair. two winters ago he stalked a deer into the mountains, but it stormed and he took cover in a stinking cave. snow covered everything, and he went deeper to look for cave fish to eat while he dug himself out. he found a bottomless lake and the serpent itself coiled on a cold shore. they shared the cave for a week before the weather calmed enough to let him through, and it never bothered him, only provided the warmth of its body.'

'boarspit,' i said.

jacques shrugged. 'he sounds convincing.'

'tell the forester he'll receive a share if he shows us these places.'

henry shook his head when jacques explained our designs in the local tongue. 'he says the worm has only brought him good things. why should he betray its kindness?'

'to hades with this man! he'll get gold.'

we finally wrested an agreement from him to show us the ford of the shepherd's demise and to lead a group of jaegers to the cave in the mountains, for two shares of the hoard. jacques had to calm the Swabs when they heard. i told him they would get and extra share each for following him.

'i'm promising away my spoils,' i said to jacques as we returned to camp. 'soon i'll be left with nothing more than a mercenary's share.'

jacques shrugged. 'hunting worms is a dangerous profession,' he said. 'and the dead renounce all claims.'

henry the forester showed up the next day at the allotted time. charles the engineer followed as far as the bend of the shepherd's death with his aides. he looked around for the best emplacement while i shared a breakfast of salted pork with the jaegers. only jacques spoke

(i rose with the sun to look round the fens and perhaps discover the lair. the mists boiled off the still water as we crossed the fens east to the gigantes. the wetlands stand between the relative flats and the mountain's fingers. between ridges run long valleys, carved out by clear streams that feed the fens. we checked orme valley first, a league northeast of teh camp. it was named for the beast, but contained only superficial caves. thence i sent jacques west with the fourteen Swabs, and i went east with a detail of twelve, while the remaining score remained at camp to watch for snaphaunces.
the valleys in the gigantes are long-running affairs, several miles deep. climbing up from the bottom looks to be easy, but often the sides of the ridges run almost straight up. i set three men to walk the ridgetop on either side, and walked up the center with the remaining seven, wetting our feet in the stream until the cold bit through our boots. halfway through the third valley, one of the men on the west ridge gave a shout, and i headed up with four of my group. it was an hour before we stood beside our comrades, two thirds of the way up the slope. sweat dripped from my chin to form tiny clumps in the dirt. i removed my shirt and sat on a rock for sometime before we continued.
there on the side of the ridge yawned a gaping hole. it opened near the bottom of a cliffside rising out of the trees. "it stinks," one of the men said. "you said that's a good sign?"
"very good," i said, rising. "if it's brimstone?"
he nodded and hoisted his musket higher on his shoulder. i donned my shirt and we made for it, across a shoulder of scree.
i smelled it from a hundred yards, that rotten egg stench that skalds and bestiaries mention. close up i felt unease in my belly, and blinked constantly, such was the stink. one of the men passed out, and i ordered him to the valley bottom after we slapped him awake.
the cave opened at the base of a cliff that demarked the treeline of the ridge. a broken pine lay before it, roots still tangled in the bare rock and soil. the reek was so heavy i felt my head swim. otherwise it looked like a natural cave, with a trickle of brackish water running out the mouth and down the slope.
"here it is," i said. "hades' vault. our fortune awaits below."
they grinned and shifted their muskets. one checked his powder horn. i rubbed a dab of pine resin under my nose. "any volunteers for danger pay?" i asked. "there's an extra share for him who looks inside--unless he finds it isn't the lair."
the man who spoke up about the stink shouldered his musket and entered. he walked with measured treat. muscles bulged in the square of his jaw.
he came out a half hour later. he carried a rock in his hand; when it came into the sun, it glinted.
"gold," he said.
"there's your share," i told him. let's go drink."
the others asked to hold the nugget as we descended to the valley floor. he offered it to me. i held it up against the sun, and it glinted silver-gold. "there's much of this?" i asked.

he nodded, and i handed it back to him.
jacques and the Swabs returned to camp that night. he came to me with a gleam in his eye. "they say you found a sulphur cave, and francis has a piece of gold."
"electrum, actually," i said.) i don't know if i like this. i like the idea of a contracted dragonslayer, which implies known dragon lair and provision of a local guide; and known haunts, where possibly to set up the guns and men. i guess the lair is the most important bit, considering it's got the wealth, though...