The beetles marched silently forward, heads down, eyes ahead. These were grim veterans of a thousand struggles. Warriors. Merchants in death. They would slaughter without mercy, without hesitation, without regret. The war machine marched silently forward. The blade of their sickle formation cutting towards a lone figure in dark robes (and his golden retriever lying on the ground a few feet away).

Against the assembled might of the beetle legion stood the mud magician, tall, proud and deadly, hood up, cloak rippling behind. The empty blues of an eastern sky as the sun tilts down far away. The mud magician crouched low, his mud arm clutching a long dagger in an underhand grip, as he awaited the enemy.

The enemy marched forward and the mud magician leapt out. His mud arm swinging up and lengthening, before pillaring down in a diagonal slash. It was a vicious, life-ending strike. Thud, dammit, cough. The blade had twisted around in its descent and knocked harmlessly against the beetle's shell. Of course, it was a trick, a demonstration. The mud magician was toying with his opponents. He was laughing at them. See how easily I can strike you down.

The beetles slowed, wary at the furious outburst, yet uncertain, for their companion still walked and breathed and had all the markings of a living beetle. Still they grew cautious, as well they should be. Here was a dark and ominous enemy who could cut into their lines at will. In their caution, they grouped up, closing the gaps between soldiers and tightening together into a phalanx of spear points. Arrogant fools, to think, even for a moment, that such petty tricks could hold back the wrath of the mud magician.

The mud magician held out his hand and the knife dropped into it. He spun the blade around and offered it back up to his mud cloak. The cloak rewound itself around the instrument, mud fingers twisting about the hilt and squeezing. No more messing around. No more Mr Nice Magician. The mud arm whipped left and right as the magician practiced his swings, testing the grip. The blade slipped out and dropped onto the ground. Dammit, cough.

Behold the marvelous foresight of the mud magician. Battles are won by he that makes the most calculations. Only a true strategist could have discovered the faulty grip before committing to an attack. The mud magician started to stoop down. Nay, the mud magician does not stoop. He rose back up and his mud servant (Harry) flew down and retrieved the fallen blade. Dammit, cough. Foolish mud servant. Treachery. The blade had fallen down again. The mud magician stooped down and picked up. Behold the humility of the mud magician. Rather than trouble his servant, he himself stoops down and retrieves the weapon.

The lowly beetles forget their places. They are dumb animals blind to the majesty of the mud magician. Watch how they advance on him even as he rubs his back and stretches side to side. How little they know of his subtle ways. And just when they think they have him cornered, the mud arm whips out like the scythe of death itself, a steel point glittering with blood-lust.

The beetle captain, a bold lord among its beetles, hops into the path of the attack and brings its proud horn up to parry the blow. Oh ye of little faith. The mud shaft phases through the horn, its momentum undiminished, its fury unbroken. See the crinkled eyes of the beetle captain open in shock as the knife guts into its side and it hobbles back a few steps, yellow pus oozing out of its wound, before toppling over. How the mighty are fallen before the mud magician.

The mud scythe springs back and hovers ominously over the head of the magician, the symbol of befalling death. Approach ye that seek the end. The beetles know no fear. They are the warriors of their clan. Those marked out for the grand ritual of death. The gaps close up. They attack as a single unit. The mud scythe rises, rises and falls down upon the lead beetle. But look, the beetle throws away its life, it defends itself not, the whole company charges together, committing to one desperate throw.

What will happen to the mud magician? How can he withstand such reckless hate? Such single-minded determination? The mud magician, oh no, the mud magician, he stumbles back. No, he lures them into a trap. No, he falls over on the ground. The mud magician! The beetles close in around him. Horns stab at the fallen figure. The mud magician! But wait, he has disappeared into the ground. The mud magician is nowhere to be found. In the beginning was the Mud, and the Mud was with the Mud Magician, and the Mud was the Mud Magician.

What's this? The lead beetle crumples down, the wound on its back finally overcoming its strength, its yellow-green life-force dripping down onto the ground. Seven beetles stand on the field of battle. They shuffle and scuttle around looking for their great enemy, but he has vanished into the face of the earth. One beetle shudders, its body groans, it manages a few, final steps, but then slumps down unresponsive, even as its companion tries to prod it back to life. One fewer enemy of the mud magician.

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The six remaining beetles group up, forming a hedgehog circle, an impenetrable bastion of black horn and beetle muscle. Except, there's a dull impact and one beetle goes misty-eyed; it trips back a few paces, revealing a trail of yellow fluid spilling out onto the ground, before collapsing down.

The beetles don't cry out. They don't tremble or flee. They are the soldiers of their clan, proud and disciplined even in defeat. Thud, another companion trembles, its heart-blood seeping out as it staggers over to its fellow, begging for aid, for aid that will not come. They stand on the field of the mud magician. The dead plains. The mud labyrinth.

Squelch, the beetle jumps up into the air as the mud scythe emerges from under it; it's escaped. No, there is no escape from the scythe of death. The blade bursts out of the mud and follows the beetle up into the sky, arching upwards and skewering into its softer underbelly; the beetle quivers, its wings gutter and stop, it falls out of the air and splashes into the mud. Death has claimed it. Only three beetles remain.

The enemy is underground. The enemy is underground. He is under their feet. The beetles look to each other and to the fallen. They throw themselves into action; they dig at the mud with their mandibles; they stab their horns into the ground. They batter the mud with all their hope and fear. Over and over. Where is he? Where is the enemy? Where is the mud magician? And yet the mud plains are vast and nameless. And those who wander into the mud labyrinth are forever lost.

The mud scythe javelins up, shooting past the black horn and into the eye of a beetle. The beetle trips, but grunts through the pain and manages to take off into the air, carrying away the enemy's weapon. The mud shaft stretches and stretches and then collapses away, unable to maintain its grip over the distance. The heroic beetle manages twenty more feet before it plummets out of the sky and crashes into the plains. The other two beetles hurry after, frantic to deny the enemy his weapon, to validate the sacrifice of their companion.

Don't they see? Can't they understand? This is the mud labyrinth and the mud magician is ruler here. Before their very eyes, before their helpless sight, their brother sinks into the mud, swallowed by the sleeping darkness. They can't reach him. They can't save him. Thunk. The mud scythe tears into the belly of a beetle. It drags itself forward. It doesn't want to die. Not like this. Not in this one-sided slaughter. Thunk, the scythe strikes again, thunk, again and the mist of death settles over the beetle.

The last beetle, the sole survivor. It turns left. It turns right. Everywhere the bodies of its brothers and the specter of the mud magician. It's too much. Fear lives at the heart's root. And to be alone is to be afraid. The beetle's nerve breaks. This is no enemy, but a monster, an evil god of the mud, a darkness. There is no fighting, no resisting, only a hopeless, desperate flight. The beetle takes to the air. It runs away. It tries to fly back into the settlement, over the walls. But its compatriots turn against it. They bar the way. They block the passage.

The beetle lands on the battlement. It tries to push past, but the wall of its unfeeling compatriots stands firm. They squeeze it back. One step, then another, then off the wall. The beetle topples down, catching itself just in time. Only to turn and make for the far grasses, to break free of the mud; it flies low to the ground, prioritizing speed, gathering momentum, as it dashes madly to safety.

Thud. It shudders violently in the air and there in its chest is the scythe. That weapon of the enemy. It hasn't escaped. There is no escape. It pushes forward, fighting against hope, but its altitude drips away until it streaks into the ground and slides into the final sleep.

Ten paces back the mud whirlpools and a dark, muddy figure emerges. He stands like a giant over the dead beetles. A hulking death god mantled by darkness. He calls to the mud scythe and the weapon obeys. The weapon of death.

Where are his enemies? Where is the legion of beetles? They lie at his feet, the defeated fallen. He looks up at the wall where the spectating beetles look down and the beetles all shrink back, hiding behind the lip of their fortifications, unwilling to met his eye. Unwilling to look into the eye of death.

The mud magician treads forward. One enemy still breathes. One helpless foe. Just where it first dared to attack the mud magician. The beetle is trapped in the mud, suspended off the ground by its own horn and no matter how it writhes and struggles, the mud does not relinquish its prey. The mud keeps its own.

The mud magician treads forward. The beetle has watched the whole fight, beginning to end. The beetle knows what is coming. It rocks itself from side to side; it tears at its own horn, clattering its mandibles together. The mud magician treads forward. And the beetle knows. Finally it knows. There is no escape. Death is already here. The beetle is already dead, just unknowing. And when the beetle sees that truth, it falls still, waiting for the hand of darkness.

The mud magician treads forward. The mud magician stops. The mud magician looks down on his helpless enemy. The mud magician pauses. Is that pity? Does the god of death feel pity? The mud scythe comes up. The mud scythe comes down. Death. Death. Death. The beetle crumbles to the ground and only a horn is left standing there in the mud.