Keeping pace with Spartan, Marcus' face shows only his grim determination to see this battle through to its eventual, bloody end. However, the Elemental actually feels a hollow gnawing beginning to grow in his stomach. As the distance diminishes between the two armies, it sinks in that this is it. This is no game. It isn't a Rugby match where both sides will share pizza, beer, and dirty songs afterwards. This is Fate... the cumulative effect of so many little butterflies flapping their tiny wings. All of those scattered skirmishes in the past had led Marcus to this battle.
The Candy Spiders' attack... Emma's rescue... Harry's death... Facing the Ear... Mason's capture... Shellmane's defeat... The Mansion... The Storm.
They had all led the Metalflesh to this very moment. Perhaps it was Fate. He might simply be an unwitting pawn in some cosmic game. As the amassed horde of Hedge creatures gets closer and closer, Marcus recognizes the gnawing for what it is. It is fear. Not the fear of death, but the fear of failure. The fear that everything he had done had all been for nothing. So much depended upon them... on him winning this fight. He tightens his grip on his Hedge Ax as his feet carry him foward. It is time to prove that he is not a Pawn... but a Knight. Okay, maybe a Rook... but definitely not a Pawn.
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