A road. A path, neat, orderly, maintained. A squad, numbering ten and led by a knave, marches to the routine drummed into them from a thousand repetitions of the same duty, the same order, the same task. Through a wooded copse they press, on two by two, making light conversation with one another as they march their patrol. Past glades and patches. Past tigerlilys and voles. Past turns and twists as they march northward, away from Snod.They’ve marched there and back. There and back, while their swords and armour goes clickety-clack. They expect no trouble.

There has not been an irregularity in months. Years. Decades. It’s hard to know one time from another when there is no way to measure time except by sun ups and sun downs. The rustle and clink of the guards’ passage comes to a halt as the knave raises his hand, bidding the group to stop. Calling for a short respite, the knave allows his men to step away from the path to relieve themselves behind nearby trees while he attempts to make reason of what he sees.

Squinting and rubbing his chin, the knave contemplates “This ‘ere tulgey forest path ain’t too right. Twain!”

A guard hastily shoves his wand back inside his trousers, Twain assumedly, and rushes to the knave’s side “Aye, sir?”

“You’re a trig’un. What the deuce do you make o’ this?” The knave inquired as he knelt forward. Examining what appeared to be some kind of irregularity in the path, a break from the monotonous checkerboard tiles, he bade Twain do  the same. They knelt, pouring over the floor, eyes up close. Unsure of what to make of it they lay down their arms, removed gauntlets, and proceeded to touch and probe at this strange abjuration of their regular marching surface.

Snicker-snack!

“Sir, did you ‘ear that?”

“Pro’ly just some lurgid bees in the wabe, Twain.” the knave replied off handedly. They continued their examination of this mystery that they could not quite comprehend. Something strange, something alien, had taken over their path. Whilst it did not block their continued passage, at least not in any active way that they could tell, it filled the knave with a certain indescribable dread.

Snicker-snack-oof!

“Sir, I think I ‘eard it aga-”

“Shhh shh shhhh,” the knave cut him off with an outstretched arm “I think I’ve nearly figured out wha’s wrong ‘ere.”

Snicker-snack! Snicker-snack!

“Sir, I-”

“I’s yellow! Them paving tiles is yellow!”

Snick!

“Twain! These tiles ain’t tiles… They’s bricks! And they ain’t red or white neither! They’re yell-”

Twain’s head floated past the knave, gently landing on some of these neither red nor white not tiles. His head had been clearly cut from the rest of Twain’s body.

The knave looked up. He came face to face with something he had not encountered before. It was wide, but deep, like a royal. But it wasn’t a royal. It was green like a rath, and snarling and terrifying! Some sort of black plumage or fur sat atop the things head, a head with a rounded face. It was dressed in armour similar to his own, armed with some kind of poleaxe in place of the sword he carried. It was clearly some kind of guard or soldier, as was he. But it stank of something he could not place, something simian and fetid and different. And it was raising the poleaxe to its shoulder, in perfect placement to strike like the Red Queen of old’s executioner had with so many, many of the inhabitants of the realm that had upset her.

All of this the knave took in in the quarter of an instant before he managed to finish the last sylable that had been meant to convey his excited discovery to his subordinate.

“-ow…”

They looked at each other for three quarter moments more before the green thing gave it’s terrifying reply. “Ee-Yah!”

The arm came down.

Snack!

The knaves head fluttered to the ground, as his headless body slumped forward, drifting a few feet.

“Eoh-Ah!”

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