James Lowder - The Ring of Winter

Fortunately for Kitcher, two men escaped to tell the tale. In gratitude for the spot of beach named after him, his uncle later paid a small group to sneak into the jungle and erect a statue to the explorer, though one that would do nothing but mutely decry the death of a would-be great man. It soon after became known as Kitcher's Folly.

The bearers had gathered around the statue, talking quietly amongst themselves. "They have heard this is the head of an evil giant, buried here long ago by Ubtao to keep strangers out of his jungle," Judar translated.

Artus glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky. "Well it's too late to move on tonight, especially since we lose the trail after this." He pulled Theron's map from his pocket. "We head southwest from here, through swampland, if the map's right. We can't do that in the dark."

The bearers returned to the packs and hoisted them to their shoulders. "Stop!" Artus cried in Tabaxi. Fear beginning to show on their faces, the natives paused. One of them began to talk excitedly to Judar.

From the little Artus could understand of the exchange, the bearers wanted to move on until the sun set completely, to put as much distance between them and the statue as possible. Judar's face told his feelings on this much more clearly than his words; he was petrified at the thought of moving farther into the jungle.

At last the guide turned back to Artus. "If we do not move on," he hissed, "the bearers will turn back right now. They will follow the trail home and leave us here."

Leaning against Kitcher's sculpted face, Artus drew his dagger. He held his palm out flat so the blade could turn in his hand. After it had indicated north, the explorer pointed southwest. "That way, then," he said to Judar.

"We must not!" the guide exclaimed.

Artus stared at the man for a moment. "We don't have a choice. There'll be danger in trekking through swamp this close to dark, but it can't be helped, not if we want to keep the bearers. Besides, staying in a clearing like this might make us an obvious target for raiders."

"But we-"

"But we what?" Artus asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Is there a reason we need to camp here?"

Judar's fear-filled expression softened. "N-no, master. It is just… the swamp is very dangerous. I know of many men who have died trying to cross it."

"Well, you'd better prove to be a better guide than the ones they trusted," Artus replied coldly. To the bearers he snapped, "Hurry up, then."

They marched for a few hours more, until night and the jungle itself stopped them. Clouds of biting insects followed the expedition relentlessly. Artus soon found the exposed parts of his arms and hands covered with welts. He must have been bitten by a hundred mosquitoes; he couldn't count how many more he'd inadvertently swallowed or inhaled.

The more immediate concern for the explorer was the terrain. The ground grew more and more soggy as they trudged on. Pockets of thin, watery mud lurked beneath the carpet of fallen leaves and vines, and it wasn't long before everyone's boots were covered in the fetid stuff. Judar had taken to testing the ground with a long stick, but the bearers were less methodical. Soon, their haste proved deadly. As night fell, one of the natives disappeared into a hidden sinkhole. Before anyone could react, the weight of the pack pulled him under, with only a swirl of disturbed mud to mark his passing.

Artus leaned over the edge of the small pool. His arms were soaked from reaching into the murky trap in a vain attempt to rescue the man. "That's it," he said, stunned. "We camp here."

For a moment, everyone watched the leaves settle back over the mud. Then the bearers lowered their burdens and knelt around their fellow's grave, bowing their heads. Their murmured prayer was lost in the calls of night-stalking birds and animals crying out a farewell to the setting sun. Finally one of them took a broad, verdant leaf. With a stick of charcoal he produced from his own small pouch, the bearer wrote his companion's name. One by one, the others spoke a single word of praise for the drowned man, all of which were added to the leaf.

"Just like the tombstones in port," Artus said. "They're writing his introduction to Ubtao." He turned to Judar, but found the guide crouching in the dirt. With his fingers he traced something on the ground.

Artus crouched down, too, his attention drawn away from the solemn ceremony around the pool. Judar ran his fingers around the deep imprint again and again. "It is a footprint," the guide hissed.

Drawing his dagger, Artus held the glowing hilt over the print. It had been made by something very heavy. The tri-clawed foot had to be twice as large as a human hand. "What made this?"

"Ubtao Zazqura," one of the bearers said. Their ritual complete, they had formed a silent ring around Artus and Judar.

"Ubtao's Children?" the explorer translated. "These are dinosaur tracks?"

Trembling, Judar closed his eyes. "Most of them hunt during the day," he said in his high, grating voice. "Most, but not all. We had better pray whatever made this print is sleeping right now."

Once they had cleared a patch of ground large enough for the tents and built up a small fire, the expedition discovered many such tracks. Some were smaller than the first, most were larger. Judar and the bearers spent much of the night staring into the jungle, snatching up spears and clubs at every nimble in the darkness. Artus, too, watched, but not in fear. For years he'd heard tales of dinosaurs, huge, ancient reptiles that once bad roamed the entirety of Toril. Some claimed they were the ancestors of modern-day dragons. Other scholars dismissed such theories as nonsense, stating serenely that the great lizards were only mammoth, plodding brutes that had become nearly extinct thousands upon thousands of years ago.

Nearly, but not entirely.

Chult was the one place on Toril where dinosaurs still flourished, though the forbidding jungles kept all but the heartiest explorers from ever seeing one. Artus could hardly contain his excitement. He leaned against a tree trunk that night, lost in imagining how wonderful and intriguing the dinosaurs might be.

The next morning, he and the rest of the expedition learned only how terrible the elusive giants were.

The first dinosaur appeared with the sunrise. The creature walked on four thick legs, moving with steady ease over the dumps of turf and shallow pools of swamp water. Its head was broad and rounded at the snout, with large glassy eyes that carefully scanned the area for a likely source of breakfast. Almost eighteen feet of barrel-like torso and stiff, twitching tail lagged behind the dinosaur's head. Spines of bone stood erect along its back, connected by a thick webbing of skin. This sail was mottled with greens and browns and even more subtle strands of dark blue, though the rest of the creature's body was the deep green of the jungle vegetation.

From what he considered a safe vantage, a dozen yards away and halfway up the trunk of a partly toppled tree, Artus studied the creature. It obliged his careful surveillance by perching atop a large cluster of boulders. For a time the dinosaur remained still, head held up to the rising sun, eyes closed.

Artus made a few notes on the creature's coloration and size, using the back of Theron's map. From his studies in the Stalwarts' library, he guessed this to be an altispinax. Little was known about them, save that they were often sighted in Chultan swamps like the one in which the expedition was currently mired.

A gentle tap on his boot made Artus start and nearly lose his grip on the tree. Judar stood below, a long pole in one hand. The guide had discovered a stand of hearty bamboo near camp, from which he and the bearers had harvested walking sticks. "Here is your dagger, Master Cimber," Judar said softly. "We are ready to go."