I hate the smell of swampy water, especially when the ground is soft and sticky, sucking up our feet with every step. I can’t stand my feet being this wet while the mud squelches into the middle of my toes.

Maybe the crossing is better, hopefully dryer.

As I step out of the wet forest into open land, my eyes widen at the horrors in front of me.

My goodness, I hate I am wrong. The field is covered in bodies, blood of Dogs mixing with the swampy water, making a soupy mixture of brown and crimson gore.

I notice a few Cinari and horses, but they make up a minority of the corpses that litter the land. It’s almost as if for every twenty dead Dogs, a single Cinari was slain.

What happened here? I know some Dogs ran to us for help, but it shouldn’t be this bad.

Midrax sits on a dead horse, eating a Cinaris arm like a child eating a piece of candy.

‘What happened here?’ I ask him.

Midrax grins. ‘I won the battle. The crossing is ours.’

‘You call this a victory? You lost more Dogs than you killed Cinari!’

‘We still won. All because of me, I have pushed them back and made them run to the hills.’

‘It doesn’t matter when a majority of casualties are your men.’

Midrax throws away the arm he was on chewing as he towers over me to intimidate me. I don’t buy his act. He isn’t dumb enough to do anything to me.

‘Why do you care? It is my army, not yours.’

‘I care because you are wasting men. They are no use to us dead. So what happened?’

‘And make it quick, Midrax.’ Marak walks over to us, taping the hilt of his sword. ‘Tell me how most of your men died.’

Midrax’s frustration shifts to fear. ‘I’ll show you.’

He stumbles over piles of Dog corpses to a single Cinari corpse with an axe head wedged into his chest.

Why does their armour look different? It’s more bulky and heavy looking than what the Cinaris will normally wear.

Next to him is a large sword that is as long as his body.

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Midrax moves the hair to show its ears are round and short and not long or pointy like a typical Cinari.

‘I don’t think they are Cinari, Marak.’ Midrax grins as he opens its eyelid, revealing its blue eyes. ‘We have fought something that doesn’t belong on this island. So you can see, by fighting a new, unfamiliar enemy, we took considerable losses.’

Marak nods as he walks off to pick up a half buried Dog helmet. He heads back to Midrax, his face blank and emotionless.

‘Is that all?’

‘It is.’ Midrax boast.

Marak shakes his head as he mumbles. ‘Okay.’

He knocks Midrax to the ground with the helmet. He tries to crawl away, but Marak drags him back to beat him with the helmet.

Midrax begs for Marak to stop as he cowers while he cries that he did nothing wrong.

I step away from them, my body shivering as Marak abuses Midrax, smacking him repeatedly until Midrax spits out blood and teeth.

What has he become? This is beyond reasonable punishment. This is sadistic.

Midrax shakes as Marak stands over him. His nose bleeding and his left eye swollen.

‘Don’t try to trick me by calling a Cinari a different creature.’ He kicks water in Midrax’s face. The final touch to his punishment. ‘I hope you learned your lesson, Midrax. But if you dare make that mistake again, I will kill you. I won’t allow failures in my kingdom. Do I make myself clear?’

Midrax nods as he tries to slur out words, but Marak leaves before he can say anything.

I go over to Midrax, reaching my hand for him to see if he needs help. He looks up at me as he slaps my hand away.

‘Leave me alone.’ Midrax groans in pain.

I walk away, leaving him as he is, on the ground and in pain.

As Marak leaves with an army behind him, ignoring the bodies of our comrades as they make their way past the crossing.

I can’t tell, but I sense something has changed within him. Something is off about Marak, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. What happened to him?