Marius turns, reaching one hand toward her shoulder, but before his fingers can touch her, she's gone, and his hand is left hanging in the air-- a score of reasons not to rush off strike him in a cluster of desperate thoughts that burst apart like snow on the resolve that, where Amara goes, he'll follow.<br/><br/>"Stay quiet," he manages, "don't use the path--" then they're moving, their downhill momentum increasing until they're not so concrened about descending as they are managing their fall.  Their legs and feet retain the memory of the woods, set them both picking their way down the hill like deer in flight.<br/><br/>Soon, the terrain levels out, and they near the edge of the woods within view of a row of farm-huts, tufts of reaped wheat-bundles still smouldering like ceremonial incense on a vast altar of the fields.  Specks and blots on the grass, seemingly scattered at randoms, mold together to assume the shape of beings... villagers, pincushioned with quarrels and arrows... twisted bodies like charred-skinned, scaled dwarves, horses in a parody of gallop, run through with spears with hafts like trees.<br/><br/>'Aberrations--' Marius whispers alongside Amara's ear.  'Bog-dwellers... this one--' he points to a heap next to a burning silo, perhaps two-dozen bodies piled togeter-- the fires are out now, for the most part-- the battle seems to have passed.<br/><br/>Movement... a few men, traveling together, pause next to a large, brown and black mottled heap-- one takes the haft of a pole and runs it through the heap-- making sure it is dead, clearly-- then the men pick it up by a pair of opposing limbs and drag it toward one of the growing piles.  The shape that they drag... it's huge, the size of a lean bear, mottled brown, black, and green in appearance, and humanoid, like some giant man...<br/><br/>At the edges of the fields, scouts linger, shortbows in their hands, and one is near the edge of the woods where Marius and Amara linger.<br/><br/>"Hold--"  Marius calls, "-- approaching, from the woods-- please, hold fast your arrows--"<br/><br/>There is a challenging response, a few others nearby, everyone going alert, but the young scout at the edge of the woods-- a boy, merely, not even a trace of beard at his cheeks-- holds his hand high in a fist, then waves it side to side-- signaling 'all clear'.<br/><br/>"Let's go," Marius says, rising from his crouch, and drawing closer to the villagers' line of defense.