Curtis trudged through the malodorous sludge that had been graced with the benign term of a marsh. The path through the foul swamp was well worn by the many feet that were stamping the moss, dirt, and root path into a hard packed trail. His foot slipped on a slick root and splashed into the bog, the muck closing around his foot. He quickly withdrew his leg, dislodging his pant leg from the pernicious root, and fell back into the single file of the army marching across the giant Hiki Marsh. Curtis marched with an army seven hundred strong, back from a campaign that no one really new the outcome of. They had won a few battles and lost a few. The army had been ordered to disengage from the fight and return to Alrahdah through the Hiki Marsh. The supplies and steeds were sent the long way around the marsh. It was a grueling march. The humidity hung in the air around them like a thick cloud, the insects were relentless, biting and stinging at any exposed flesh they could find. The stench of the place settled all around them, making every breath unpleasant. More than one person had already fallen into some of the more dangerous parts and had been smothered by the slush, or been eaten by the many crocodiles and tuurbotongs that resided in the horrible place.
Curtis was not a common foot soldier, but there was only one trail, no horse or steer could fit on it, so he marched along with the rest, experiencing every discomfort a normal soldier would encounter. He was an orphan, as far as he knew. He was found as a baby by an Alrahdan traveler near the Unveiled Rending. Ever since Curtis could remember, he had trained and fought, and procured a high rank in the army for himself.
All the men marching across the Hiki Marsh shared the same desire; to return home as quickly as possible to their families and warm hearths. Little did any of them know that doom lay just few hours ahead.

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Fadriel jogged across the spongy trail in step with the Enarkins and a small amount of humans as well. It was their mission to sabotage the retreat of the Alrahdan army: with less than one hundred men. Fadriel held in his hand a five foot long tuurshan wood bow-staff, swaying back and forth as he trotted along with the marsh on ether side of him. He ducked under a low-hanging bush and focused on the black shiny back of the Enarkin in front of him, the man's muscles shifting and rippling as he ran along, his arms pumping.

At last, in front of the small dispatch of soldiers the boulders were visible, looming out of the thick haze. The band of Enarkins and men scattered among the rocks, some out in the bog, some only a few feet off the pitiful path. Fadriel positioned himself behind a boulder on a cleft in the rock. A man roughly thirty years in age took refuge only a few yards away to his left, and an Enarkin to his right. Fadriel studied the scorpion-man, although he had lived with the curious race for the past ten years he was still fascinated by their appearance and behavior. The man had sleek, black, hard skin like a beetles shell, his hands were thick and tough, like pincers but with six different appendages. He stood upright, about seven feet tall, on two powerful legs. He had no shirt on, but he had shorts that seemed a size too small for his extremely muscular thighs. His face was like a humans but without a nose and closely resembling that of a beetle or scorpion. His neck was extremely thick, arching forward, melding into the back of his head. He had a thick muscular tail that curved upward from his hindquarters with a curved stinger on the end. He held a thick short curved sword in one hand, and held onto a small scraggly shrub with the other. Fadriel turned away, and sat with his back against the hard rock, knowing it would be a few hours before the army came close enough to attack. He pulled a set of pulleys out of his bow-staff that were hidden in a carved niche in the rod. Grabbing a small pouch at his hip, he produced a long thick cord and began threading the cord through the pulleys that were locked in place, sticking out of the staff. When he had finished he held in his hand, not a bow-staff, but a long bow. He had invented the pulley system, finding out that the arrow would fly four times further, four times faster, and four times stronger. Hours passed as the day grew longer. Though the sun shone brightly outside of the bog, the marsh was eternally covered in a thick hazy mist that blocked out the sun, though the light still shone as a large yellow splotch in the white of the humidity. He heard them long before he saw them. A long line of men in single file stretched out into the haze. Immediately, dozens of Enarkins dove into the water and muck of the marsh. Fadriel repositioned himself on the boulder and notched an arrow on his string. He took a deep breath and held it, waiting for the command to herald the demise of the Alrahdan army.

********
Curtis eyed a tuurbotong warily as it floated lazily in the sludge and watched the long procession of battle weary men march past. It looked as if it was about to lunge out of the water and grab any unfortunate soul within its deathly grasp, but it did not move and Curtis trudged by without an incident. His legs were weary from the long hike and his feet hurt from the uneven roots and moss. Cutis was hot and weighted down, and with his sword, his knives in their respective sheaths at his hips, his satchel containing his bedroll and scanty provisions, and his water and sweat-soaked clothes, he carried quite a lot of weight. Though, no more than the average soldier. He had somewhat befriended the man in front of him and they had talked a little throughout the journey. His name was Talain and was quite a bit older than Curtis. They conversed about their different adventures in the recent war, their favorite books and parchments, and what they would do when they got home. After the long hours of monotony something interesting or new was a welcome sight; looming ahead, shrouded by mist was a collection of boulders. Some only three feet high, some extending high enough that the haze enveloped the top. The path became firmer as they began to walk on dirt instead of a network of roots. Unfortunately, they would not be stopping here, seeing as they had just stopped less than a half an hour before for the midday meal. As he entered the jumble of boulders, Curtis reached out to touch one of the smooth surfaces. He traced his finger along one of the curved grain until it extended beyond his arm length. The odd collection of orange granite boulders extended along the trail for about one hundred feet. As he turned back to once again stare at the back Talain's head in front of him, he felt his skin tingle and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He turned around just in time to see an arrow materialize from the mist and imbed itself in Talain's temple.

Immediately after, huge, muscular Enarkins leapt from the heavy fog around them and engaged in mortal combat. They delivered quick powerful slices with their thick, short blades. More of the huge scorpion-men erupted from the sludge and water around them like dozens of crocodiles leaping towards their prey. Battle cries, shouts of surprise, and metal against metal burst out of the mist. Curtis reacted immediately, dropping his satchel and drawing his sword. A human leaped from a mist-shrouded boulder at him. Curtis side stepped and parried with his blade before rolling it around his opponent's sword and giving the man a gash on his face. The man swung blindly at him with one hand as he tried to clutch his face with the other, Curtis ducked and came up quickly, jamming his shoulder into the assailants stomach. The man toppled into the marsh, where he was quickly devoured by an awaiting crocodile. Curtis turned back to face the fray.

*********
Fadriel's arms trembled slightly under the strain as he held the bow in a firing position, waiting to get a good shot. He saw his opportunity and fired into the skirmish, hitting his mark with exact precision. As far as he knew he was the best archer in all of Enarka, probably in all of Sarian. With his upgraded bow he could shoot an arrow more than a quarter-mile away, exactly within the inch he was aiming for. He had no trouble here. He shot to kill, and every arrow he fired did just that. He stayed at the cleft in the boulder, and fired from there not wishing to enter the hubbub.

********
Curtis swung his sword, clipping the back of an Enarkin's head as it despatched an Alrahdan soldier. His blade only left a small indentation in the scorpion's hard skin. It turned on him wielding its sword with lightning speed. Curtis effectively blocked each strike and spun to the side, kicking the back of the Enarkin's knee, pitching it backwards into the marsh, where it was grabbed by a toorbatong and drug underwater, although his thick hide could not be penetrated but the enormous reptile. An arrow whizzed through the air and buried itself in a soldier's eye, killing him instantly. Curtis looked up to the source of the arrows, it was shrouded in a thick mist, keeping him from seeing the attacker. Twenty men had already been felled by the deadly marksmen hidden in the fog. A crocodile lunged out of the water and grabbed an enemy soldier by the leg and pulled him, screaming, into the murky water. The Alrahdan army near the boulders was all but annihilated. But, thankfully, there was strength in the numbers, and whenever a man was slain, another took his place. A warm wind began blowing as Curtis battled another Enarkin. By the time he had despatched the arachnid-man the fog had been blown mostly to the north. He glanced up, and for the first time saw the bowman with the long bow in his hand. He released the bowstring and downed another man through the back of his neck. The marksman was no older than Curtis himself, at only eighteen years of age. Curtis knew he had to stop him before he picked off their army one-by-one. He started forward, bounding from one rock to another. He stopped for a second to analyze his rout up to the teen. The bowman saw him, notched an arrow on the string and aimed right at Curtis.

********
Fadriel adjusted his grip on the bow before firing at a man who had just slain an Enarkin. The man went down with the arrow stuck in his head, and was trampled underfoot. A bit of movement caught his eye. He turned his head and saw a young soldier bounding up the rocks toward him. He almost laughed at the young man's audacity. He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and notched it on the string. He aimed quickly and fired at the bold aggressor. The man raised his sword and knocked the arrow out of the air with a swift swing that sent it into a crack in the rock. Fadriel was shocked; never had he seen a common Alrahdan soldier posses so much skill or precision. He fired again with the same results. The mist was rolling back in now, and would soon obscure the defenders vision. The young man flipped a knife out of its sheath, tossed it in the air, caught the tip, and and threw it hard at him. He tried to dodge the blade but was not fast enough and it stuck into his leg. He hissed in pain and removed the steel from his thigh, blood covering his hand. Just before the fog obscured their vision their eyes met, little did either one of them know that this would be a long lasting rivalry.

➰〰➰〰➰

Dray struggled to snag a bush or evergreen as he climbed an almost vertical mountain side in the middle of a blizzard. Dray could hardly see, but he had to get to the summit or find a niche in the steep icy shale. His pack was weighing him down profusely. He discovered a thick slab of ice clinging onto the cliff face. He reared his arm back and swung hard at the ice and lodged his three-pronged hooks that were covering the two stumps on his arms, where his hands should have been, into the ice. Claw over claw, slowly climbing up the rock face. His right foot was also missing, likewise replaced by a three-pronged metal foot of sorts, which he also dug into the ice to help him climb. Just when he was about to give up and drop off the edge from pure exhaustion, his hand found a crack in the rock, just big enough to fit in, with a flat bottom to it. He began crawling inside, foot and foot-claw first. The crack extended into the mountainside for about ten feet, before it came to a dead end. The crack was only about two feet wide and high, but it opened into a small chamber about four feet high, giving Dray little motion capability. He opened his pack and pulled out a thick blanket, of which he laid on his body to keep out the cold, a lumpy pillow, and a piece of jerked meat. He used his pack to stop up the entrance from the wind and snow. Dray devoured the jerky and tried to get comfortable, when he was finally pleased with his bedding he closed his eyes and immediately dropped off to sleep.

*******
Curtis gripped his sword tighter and began jumping forward again. He reached the spot where the bowman had been, the blood on the rock only confirmed the fact. He had obviously clambered higher on the boulder. Just as he was starting up after the teen, a muscular Enarkin materialized out of the mist and landed on Curtis, slamming him off the cleft in the granite. He flew through the air with the Enarkin on top of him. Curtis hit the marsh water, the muck closing around him, disentangling him from the Enarkin's grasp. He struggled to get above the surface of the water, but his body was lodged in the silt and mud at the bottom. After wriggling back and forth he was able to dislodge himself from the thick residue at the bottom of the four-foot deep water. His head broke the surface just in time to see all six hundred jagged teeth in the open mouth of a massive toorbatong. Curtis back-flopped into the water, the toorbatong's jaws closing over the water. He struggled backwards, kicking the giant crocodilian in the nose. It lunged again, but this time, Curtis was ready: although Curtis' sword had long since been rent from his grasp, he still had his knives left. He swung down with one blade, slicing the beast's nose, and up with the other, burying it in the toorbatong's soft under chin. It lurched violently and decided that Curtis wasn't worth what it had cost him, retreating into the water for easier prey. Curtis scrambled back on shore, located his sword and turned back to join the fight, only to be slammed to the ground by the same Enarkin. The air was rent from his lungs as he hit the ground, struggling for breath. The Enarkin straddled him, bent over in a swift motion, and his tail whipped over his shoulder. Curtis dodged just in time as the stinger buried in the ground beside him. Curtis struggled to get a grip on his sword as the Enarkin whipped his tail over his shoulder again, Curtis rolled to the right, bumping up against his thick leg, the stinger missing Curtis' head by inches. He thrust his sword upward and it glanced off of the man's broad shell-like chest. He pushed off of the ground and slammed his shoulder into the Enarkin's groin. The man grunted, doubling over in pain. Curtis took the opportunity and got to his feet, pushing the scorpion-man off his in the process. With one fluid motion, his repositioned his sword and stabbed it through its vulnerable mouth, effectively ending its life. Curtis turned around. By some signal he had not noticed, all of the enemy men and Enarkins had fled to the water, using powerful strokes to propel themselves to nearby islands in the sludge, disappearing from view in the mist. An order rippled through the line of exhausted and confused men; it was time to keep marching. The attack was obviously a hit-and-run battle, but they needed to exit the area as soon as possible. With many a wary glance at the swamp and the boulders, the men hoisted their packs, wiped their swords, and fell into marching again.

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