It was raining. It hadn’t stopped for days, ever since the enemy had changed. He could see their stronghold across the mudflats. It was deceptively close. The walls looked to be made of ice and mist with towers like waterfalls. That was when they could be seen at all through the torrential downpour.

Yet to get there that meant crossing the flats as soon as the tide started to go down. Waist deep water and sucking sand that threatened to drag you down. The castle’s defenders lurked in their. In the depths of waves and even when that lowered to ankle depth, they hid in the squelching earth.

A scaly claw grabbed his ankle and he tripped. More putrid hands and arms rose, scratching at his hide, gripping his horns. Dragging him below into the mud where blood mixed and roiled. Below to the sunless reaches of earth and sea to crush the air from his chest. It threaten to fill his lungs, so Ram do the only thing he could think of to keep that from happening.

He fought. And he roared.