"If this doesn't work, I'm going to feel really stupid about squandering all this salt," Ur-Namma said as he poured a circle of table salt on the ground around Sadia. "A terrible waste, really. At least your blood is a replenishing resource."

They had set up behind their own wagon, close to the road on an undisturbed patch of dry earth. The plan was simple, as best plans often were. A protective circle of salt and blood, which Ur-Namma would power up with a touch of his soul. It should shield Sadia from the Demon's influence, for a time.

No matter where Oak looked, the keep at the heart of the rotting town their camp bordered loomed large in his mind. He could pinpoint its exact location with his eyes closed.

A seeping, festering sickness. A decay suffusing the very fabric of Creation. Whispers in the dark.

The Demon had to know they were here. And yet it did nothing. Sent nothing to assail them. The servant of Rot had to believe time was on its side. If they were anyone else, it would have been correct. Hells. It still might be.

"Don't worry, the salt is not ours," Oak replied, fiddling with his hunting knife.

"It isn't?"

"I pilfered it from Tochukwu. I'm sure he wouldn't mind, considering the circumstances."

"Hmm. I concur."

"HE WILL MIND." Geezer huffed. He sat by the side of the road, surveying the proceedings. "STEALING. WRONG."

Ur-Namma glanced at the hellhound and lifted an eyebrow. "See what you have done, Oak? You have taught him too well. He is actually a good, honest boy."

"The best boy there is, aren't you, Geezer?" Oak asked, letting pride color his voice.

"ME. BEST BOY!" Geezer's tail thumped against the earth in excitement. "THE BEST!"

"Yes, you are!"

Ur-Namma knelt next to the circle and examined the uninterrupted line of salt surrounding Sadia. The girl sat there in silence, slumped forward and hunched in on herself. Her gaze had not left the ground since they had dragged her here. Everyone else in the caravan acted much the same. Only a few people moved about, and they did it like they were carrying the weight of mankind's sins on their shoulders.

"A small cut on your forearm should do the trick." Ur-Namma said and stretched his fingers. "Get on with it."

Oak did as the elf bid and nicked the outside of his forearm. Blood trickled from the shallow wound in a steady drip. He stepped forward and extended his arm, ready to add his blood to the circle.

"No, no, no. What do you think you are doing?" Ur-Namma shook his head and chucked a small wooden bowl at him. "Take this and fill it. Then carefully pour over the salt. There is no need to be barbaric about things and sprinkle the blood everywhere. We are not conducting some backyard ritual sacrifice here."

"Right."

It rankled Oak to admit it, but pouring from the bowl made the whole thing much easier. Ur-Namma's smug smile rankled him even more. Nevertheless, he swallowed down his pride, like he always did when a relative expert opened their piehole, and got the job done. Facts got results, and that was all Oak cared about.

The Reaper walks in the shadow of every haughty spirit. As far as Oak was concerned, the dead could keep their pride. He had no use for it.

"Done."

Ur-Namma nodded, placed one of his long, pale fingers over the circle, and closed his eyes. Soon, Oak felt it. A trickle of power, flowing from the elf to the circle. A hum sounded, and the circle flared to life with a faint pop.

Sadia straightened her spine and blinked. Clarity crept slowly back to her eyes. She shook her head and looked around, eyes widening as she saw the rotting jungle surrounding their encampment.

"What? How? Why?" Sadia asked and cracked her neck. "God, my neck hurts."

"Things are going to Hell in a handbasket, girl." Oak threw one of the bronze amulets Sadia had bought back at Kesh on the spellsinger's lap. "We are chest deep in demonic corruption, and believe me, it is not the fun kind."

"The fun kind?" Sadia asked, a puzzled look on her face.

"Forget I said anything."

"Focus, my friends. A Demon of Rot and Decay has turned that town into its lair," Ur-Namma cut in and pointed at Al-Badra.

Sadia followed his finger with her gaze, swallowing at the sight of the blight staining the land. "By the Mother!" she gasped and clasped her hands in prayer.

"Can you turn that amulet into a portable source of protection from the Demon's influence?" Ur-Namma asked.

"Yes. I believe I can." Sadia bit her lip and nodded slowly. "Get me my grandmother's grimoire." She glanced at the circle, frowning at the speckles of red coating the salt. "And some more of Oak's blood, please."

Ur-Namma handed the book over, and the little spellsinger got to work.

"Why me? I am not a bag of ritual supplies, you know?" Oak grumbled as he nicked his forearm again and drained blood into the bowl.

"Shut it, Northerner. I have thaumaturgy to perform and no time for excuses," Sadia replied, face scrunched in concentration, fingers dancing over the bronze amulet.

"I'm just saying. Geezer is right there, and his blood would surely work equally well."

"Yeah, but Geezer is the best." Ur-Namma grinned and cocked his head, staring right at the hellhound. "Aren't you, Geezer?"

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I AM THE BEST BOY," Geezer said in the haunting voice of a choir of screaming men.

***

"Look at the salt, Ur-Namma." Oak pointed at the town-facing edge of the protective circle the elf had made. "It's turning black."

Tiny smudges of corruption grew on the circle of salt and blood, like spots of mold on a piece of old bread.

"Hmm. My expectations for this circle were low, but I find myself disappointed all the same." Ur-Namma grimaced, staring at the black dots creeping across the salt line. "How far along are you, Sadia?"

"Almost…done! Give me the other one," Sadia said and put the bronze amulet she had been working on around her neck. "And stop critiquing every minute detail of your work, Ur-Namma. You got the right idea, and it worked, that's what matters!"

Oak dug out the second bronze amulet and handed it to Sadia. The little spellsinger had taken a page out of his book back in Kesh and bought two spare amulets in case something happened to her purification tool. When he had found out, Oak had been embarrassingly pleased. It felt nice when people followed your advice.

Especially when the advice in question was so good. Being prepared could very well save their collective ass.

"Wait, one moment." Sadia set the amulet down inside the circle, got up, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the circle. She stood there in silence with her eyes closed, fingers twitching. Nothing happened. With a shrug, Sadia stepped back inside the circle.

"What was that about?" Oak asked.

"I had to check if my enchantment actually worked before I made another."

"Huh. Smart."

Ur-Namma huffed. "Please, Northerner, that is just basic–"

"Don't you start with me, elf," Oak cut him off. "Compliments are like gifts; leaving them unshared means you miss the point of them."

The elf squared his shoulders and muttered something unkind in his own tongue. Oak paid him no mind. Ur-Namma's grumbling was a fair price to pay for the flush of pride on Sadia's face. The girl deserved every speck of happiness he could grant her, no matter how small.

Having practiced the necessary spells already, Sadia finished enchanting the second amulet in half the time it took her to make the first.

"So, who are we going to give this to?" Sadia asked and swung the amulet around from its chain before catching it in her fist. "Any ideas?"

"Yakubu," Oak replied.

"I don't oppose your choice, but I would like to hear your reasons." Ur-Namma showed his needle-like teeth. "They are often…illuminating."

Oak held up three fingers and lowered them one by one as he made his point. "One, he knows how to fight and he is well equipped. Two, I know him and we have fought with him before. And three, he has a family."

"A family?" Ur-Namma lifted an eyebrow.

"A man by his lonesome might look at the odds and decide that grabbing a backpack full of food and running off with the amulet is the best course of action. A man like Yakubu, with a wife and three children in the grips of the Demon's influence, will not even consider fleeing."

Ur-Namma clicked his tongue, but seemed satisfied with the answer. "What about the three of us? Could we make it out if we abandoned the caravan to its fate?" the elf asked suddenly, gray eyes betraying nothing of his opinion on the matter.

Oak gave the question some thought, despite Sadia's scandalized gasp of displeasure at the mere idea. They would have to leave the oxen and the wagon behind. Food would undoubtedly run out on the road. At best, they would reach the city state of Mashkan-shapir with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

"With some luck we might make it, but I don't think it would be worth it." Oak shook his head, scratching at his beard. "Abandoning the caravan would not be risk free compared to eradicating the Demon and even if we succeeded, it could set us back by months. Who knows when the next caravan heading to Chadash Merkavah might pass by?"

"Then we are in agreement, Northerner," Ur-Namma murmured, voice laced with iron, much to Sadia's apparent relief. "The only way out is through."

Blood and offal. I will make an offering of this upstart servant of Rot and Decay, Ashmedai. Savage pleasure flowed through Oak's veins at the thought, and the Corse of Bloodshed shivered inside his soul. Soon. Very soon, boon of mine.

"Since that dismal subject is now dealt with, what are we going to do with the rest of the caravan while we venture into town?" Sadia asked, her brown eyes flashing with annoyance.

"How about I drag Tochukwu into that circle, while it is still operational, so we can ask if he has any bright ideas?" Oak rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. "I will wake up Yakubu first, and we will bring Tochukwu here together."

"Fine by me."

***

Yakubu was not a hard man to find. Men built like slabs of bronze were rare, and the Nkruma family wagon was close by. Oak found the man sitting on the driver's bench of the wagon, eyes half closed and face slack with exhaustion, staring at the festering pustule of a town that was Al-Badra without seeing a thing. The man was blind to the rot and corruption surrounding and seeping into the caravan.

Oak put the enchanted bronze amulet around Yakubu's neck and sat down to wait. Not long after, the Koromite warrior startled into wakefulness.

"What dismal fate has befallen us, pale man?"

"A Demon of Rot and Decay."

"Ah." Yakubu nodded to himself. "You want my help?"

"Yes."

"Let me kiss my wife and children goodbye before I grab my weapons."

Once Yakubu had hugged and kissed every member of his family, the pair of them walked to the northern side of the vast encampment, where the Kporaro caravan company had circled their wagons into something resembling a fortification.

They found Tochukwu in a deep stupor, staring at a wagon axle like it was the most interesting thing in all of Creation. Oak took the legs, while Yakubu lifted by the hands and they carried the fat leader of the caravan to the circle of blood and salt, across rotting grass churned into mud by the wheels of countless wagons.

Under Sadia's watchful eyes, they dumped the leader of the caravan into the circle and settled in to wait. It did not take long for Tochukwu to shake the Demon's influence from his system.

"Aw, shit." Tochukwu glanced around, taking in the state of the caravan's campsite. Flanked on all sides by the rotting jungle and conquered by apathy and decay, the caravan was in dire straits. Slumped forms of men and women sat around their wagons without a care in the world, eyes staring into nothingness. "This is going to be one of those journeys, isn't it? Talk to me, people. What's the damage?"

"THE SALT, TOCHUKWU. THEY STOLE YOUR SALT," Geezer blurted, ears flat against his head in worry.

"Huh?"

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