‘Worms of the Dirt’
She left Krothuum with her sword on her back and her pride in tatters, amber eyes burning with vengeance. For weeks she walked the roads of Zhuru with fury in her belly, swearing she would return, swearing she would kill Rathgur, swearing Krothuum would choke on her blade. But as the months passed, fury turned to weakness. Her belly swelled, not with cub nor with strength, but with fever.
At first she thought it an injury, a poison, a curse perhaps.
But when the blood came, thick and foul, and when the cramps tore her body from within, she knew something worse had taken root. She dreamed of coils, of squirming shapes gnawing her from inside. She woke with sweat cold on her fur, her thighs slick with rot. By the ninth month, she could no longer walk with the strength of a barbarian. Her legs buckled. Her once-muscular frame sagged under the weight of the sickness. And when she finally collapsed in a roadside tavern, writhing on the planks, the truth spilled from her in blood and pus and writhing larvae.
The Vulture Worms, seeded in her womb by Rathgur’s thrust, had bloomed. She died screaming, clawing at her own belly, as the crowd backed away in horror. Not one came to her aid. Not one offered pity.
The tale was already forming in their mouths before her body cooled. And so the story traveled. From Zhanti’s whore dens to Kansubar’s smoke halls, from Ul’Thadaar’s ruin-stairs to Zarnack’s silken chambers, the tale grew sharper with each retelling. She was no longer the black wolf who lost her sword. She was the fool who carried Krothuum’s worms, who thought she could walk away from hyena laughter, only to rot from the inside. And in Krothuum itself, Rathgur raised his tankard and laughed the loudest.
“The bitch learned her lesson,” he roared, and the forge shook with cackling. “The worms teach harder than I ever could.” Thus ended her tale. Thus was her pride devoured. Thus was another line etched into the scripture of humiliation that folk call The Teachings of Krothuum.
