They sang songs as they went, intermingled with the occasional curse as a sharp spine or thorn made another tear in their clothes or scratched their skins, and they swapped tales of their adventures in the service of the Empire to pass the time. On either side of them, the soggy flat ground stretched clear to the horizon, and the air was filled with the reek of marsh gas and the buzzing of midges. Pars showed them how to rub the sap of a certain plant onto all their exposed areas of skin, after which the bloodsucking flies ceased to bother them, but it was no protection from the black leeches that they kept finding under their clothes. “Grey probably knows a recipe for these,” said Cheston as he pulled one loose and held it up to look at it. “Lightly fried with a hint of garlic...”

     “Just onions, I would think,” said Grey, though. “Garlic would overpower their natural flavour.”

     Despite himself, Drake found himself grinning, but he sobered when he remembered that they were having to live off the land since their trail rations had run out, and that, unless they could catch something more appetising, leeches might well be on the menu that evening.

     At night, the air was filled with the din of night creatures roaming around, eating and being eaten, which was a surprise because, except for the occasional bird, they had seen no evidence at all of any large animal life since entering the marshes. Most worrying was a faint and distant roaring bellow, repeated several times, that the ranger identified as a gargant, a dinosaur-like creature capable of having them all for breakfast. It kept them awake for well over two hours as it crashed around in the marshes west of them, before wandering off, much to their relief.

     The next day, they passed one of the large salty lakes that Pars had mentioned. The ridge went right through the middle of it, and the central hundred yard stretch had sunk below the level of the water, forcing them to wade waist deep through it while large salamander-like amphibians swam around their legs. They bit and nibbled at them, causing the five Beltharans quite a bit of annoyance and discomfort as they splashed around at the water with wooden staves in an attempt to drive them away. Their annoyance turned to sudden fear, however, when the pesty amphibians suddenly swam off and disappeared, making them look around anxiously for whatever had scared them. Soon they saw it, a huge snake at least fifty feet long and over two feet thick in the middle, swimming towards them over the surface of the water. Drake drew his sword and stood ready to defend himself, but the snake paid them no attention and swam past, chasing after the salamanders that were its preferred prey.

     They came across several other open areas of water after that, and had to wade through several of them where the ridge had sunk and subsided, often bringing them face to face with some of the swamp's less pleasant inhabitants. They came across more snakes, crocodiles, large carnivorous amphibians with long teeth, flesh eating fish covered by plates of bony armour, and once a large tentacled thing that remained hidden below the surface, only its long tentacles being seen as they coiled around their legs and tried to drag them down into the water. Cheston and Grey kept up a steady chatter as they told each other what a miserable time they were having, each of them trying to prove that they were more miserable than their companion and Pars, listening, wondered whether or not to tell them that they hadn't seen any of the marsh's really dangerous inhabitants yet. In the end he decided not to. No sense in worrying them about problems we might never have to face, he thought.

     That very day, however, just a couple of hours after their encounter with the tentacled thing, they did come across one of the swamp's more dangerous inhabitants. They were on a stretch of ridge that was safely high and dry above the reed filled water that stretched clear to the horizon on both sides when they saw a building on the ridge ahead of them, made of dry woven reeds. It had obviously been recently built and was probably still occupied. "Lizard men," said Pars as they all dropped to their bellies to avoid being seen. "Bad tempered and antisocial. We don't want to mess with them if we can help it. This guardpost probably marks the edge of their territory. If we go further, we're bound to run into more of them."

     "You're not suggesting we turn back!" cried Cheston in dismay. "Lose all the progress we've made so far..."

     "We may have to," said the ranger. "Return to the edge of the marshes and go a little east or west until we find another ridge. However, we'd be just as likely to run into another lizard man community. They're quite common in marshy areas like this."

     "Perhaps they'll just let us pass through peacefully," said Drake. "They're not actually evil, are they?"

     "No, not actually evil as such, but very unfriendly and easy to anger. If we walk up to them openly and friendly and talk and act as politely as possible, they might let us through their territory with an armed escort. They'd probably want a large fee for the privilege, though. They trade with the human communities on the southern edge of the marshes, mainly for weapons, so they need money despite their primitive lifestyle. However, there's no guarantee they'll let us through no matter how much we offer them. They'll be just as likely to turn us away and forbid us from entering their territory, and they might even try to kill or capture us."

     Gallit thought for a while. “We’ll risk it," he said at last. "I want to get through this bloody swamp as fast as bloody possible. There’s war coming, and we need to get back home to fight it.”

     "I agree," said the priest. "They may distrust the rest of you, but they'll know that I'm a worshipper of Samnos. They won't risk offending Him by accusing one of His followers of dishonesty. If I do all the talking, we may be able to carry it off."

     "It might work," said Pars doubtfully, "but only if we're all perfect gentlemen among them, all friendly and polite. The slightest indication of an unfriendly attitude will blow the whole thing right up and we might have to fight our way out of there. Understand?" The others nodded. "And we have to walk towards them slowly, giving them plenty of time to see us coming. If they think we're creeping around, any hope of a friendly relationship with them will be gone for sure. So, are we all sure we want to do this?"

     "If it gets us out of here quicker, yes!" said the Sergeant, and Cheston and Grey nodded their agreement.

     "Okay," said the ranger. "Let's go, then."

     They stood again, therefore, and walked slowly towards the hut, smiling widely, their hands well away from their weapons. As they got closer, they saw small openings in the woven matting of the hut's wall and imagined reptilian eyes peering out at them, but they must only have looked every few minutes because they were able to get quite close without any alarm being raised. Pars signed for them to stop and stand where they were, worried that the lizard men might take fright if they found strangers right on top of them, and he considered calling out to them, but that turned out not to be necessary. A moment later they heard a squawk of alarm from the hut, and half a dozen of the creatures came running out, blocking the ridge, their weapons in their hands.

     They were basically man shaped, walking upright on two legs as they stared suspiciously at them. A long muscular tail trailed behind them, however, acting as a counterweight as they leaned forward like dinosaurs. Their faces were long and pointed, with jutting snouts like those of a dog or a lizard, and their hands were three fingered and clawed. Drake couldn't see their feet, but was willing to bet that they would have three long, birdlike claws. Their skin was scaly and reptilian, a light mauve in colour with brighter stripes running from their spines down their sides, and they had brightly coloured crests at the back of their heads, running down their necks. They wore leather belts across one shoulder from which several pockets and pouches hung, with brightly coloured feathers attached at intervals, and two of them wore leather scabbards around their waists from which human made ironwood swords had been drawn. The others were armed with home made weapons. Long wooden spears made of some local wood, tipped with sharpened bone.

     The humans raised their hands and widened their friendly smiles. "We come in peace," said Drake. "We only want to follow this ridge to the land of Calmany to the south. Will you let us pass in peace?"

     The lizard men stared at them for a few moments, held a brief conference in a hissing, snapping language, and then one of then stepped a few paces forward. He looked them up and down with his slitted yellow eyes, his neck crest rising and falling as if with uncertainty, and his long tongue flicked in and out between his teeth. He spoke a few words in his own language, waited to see if they would respond, and then tried the common tongue which he spoke with a voice they could just barely understand. Having no lips, he could not pronounce the letters B, M or P, and every occurrence of the letter ‘S' came out as a drawn hiss.

     "You ssoldierss?" it asked, indicating their uniforms and the weapons belted around their waists. The other lizard men raised their weapons and backed away a couple of steps.

     "Yes," said Drake. "We belong to the Imperial Beltharan Army, but we mean you no harm. We just want to pass through in peace. Will you let us?"

     "You not go thiss way," said the lizard man. "You go ‘ack, go another way."

     "Please," pleaded Drake, keeping the smile on his face. He realised suddenly that his helmet probably made him look frightening to them, so he took it off and held it under his arm. He held his golden griffin pendant up in his free hand. "You can see that I'm a priest of Samnos, a God of justice and righteousness, so you know that I'm telling the truth. We mean you no harm. It won't hurt you to let us through." He dropped the pendant back onto his chest and took a leather purse from his belt, holding it up suggestively. "We would be very grateful."

     "You not go thisss way,” the lizard man repeated. “There isss danger to the sssouth. You go another way.”

     "Danger?" asked Drake. "What kind of danger?"

     "A great evil hass entered our land. Fissh ssoldiers fro' the great water to the easst. If they ssee you, they will kill you. ‘Ore human ssoldierss co' fro' the north to find out what ha'ened to you, what killed you. Think ‘aybe it wass uss, and hunt uss and kill uss worsse than the fissh sssoldiers. You go away, go home another way. Ssoon fissh sssoldiers go away too, leave uss in ‘eace."

     "Fish soldiers?" muttered Pars to himself. "Could he mean..." He walked up to stand at Drake's side. "These fish men, do they walk on two legs like men, have the heads and bodies of fish and carry tridents?"

     "Yess," said the lizard man. "You know of fissh ‘sssoldiers?"

     "I've heard of such creatures," said the ranger. "Pakin-kho."

     "Gill men!" exclaimed Gallit, who also came up to join the other two, leaving the two privates alone at the back.

     "Yes, we certainly don't want to have anything to do with creatures like that. Thank you, good lizard men, for the warning. We are grateful. We will go home another way."

     Gallit looked up at the yellow sun. “It’s around midday,” he said. “If our good friends here don’t mind, I suggest we have our midday break here.” Travellers far from home often took the opportunity to share a meal with whatever locals they encountered. It gave them an opportunity to talk to them, learn what to expect in the lands they would be passing through in the days ahead, while the locals got to learn what was happening in the wider world beyond.

     The lizard men apparently had the same customs and agreed to eat with them, so the Beltharans spread their sleeping blankets out on a patch of clear ground about twenty yards from the guard post to form a makeshift picnic area while two of the lizard men brought stools and a wicker table which they placed alongside.