Further in, the swamp lived up to its name. The forest and small isles of soft earth dotted the landscape, and small mammals with six limbs scurried along the branches and shimmied up gnarled trees as we trudged through what we hoped was the most shallow of pathways through the mire. Lucius had volunteered to go first, to keep the depth of the swamp in mind. However I countermanded that and sent him to the back. Even if his height was a good gauge of testing water levels, his bulk would create holes in and of themselves, and we wished to move as stealthily as we could in the murk. 

Bugs plagued us incessantly and sweat clung to our skin, but I was surprised to hear only a modicum of complaining from Emmaline and a smidgen of griping from Selencia. Clara did grouse once, but she was only concerned our current trajectory might have us be caught in a compromising position. I led us as best I could across what passed for solid ground, however, and it took another two hours before we saw another living being that was not insect or critter. If I had to guess, we were a days walk to the river and two days away from reaching any real hard ground on the opposite shore. 

At first, I thought the crude boat was a part of the landscape, but at the corner of my eye I saw it lazily detached from a small tree infested piece of land, and I signaled for the group to hide as best they could. With some sloshing accompanying us, we managed to kneel behind what logs and large fungal growths we could. Lucius had to lay almost flat in the water to even scratch the surface of what I might call 'hiding,' though like an astartes, he could hold his breath far longer than a normal man and so ceased to move, his armored bulk looking like a fallen craft more than any being. 

The boat's arrival was announced by the sound of a juttering engine, and from my vantage point I could see three men atop a flat surface. Their fatigues were dirties beyond excuse, even in such a locale, and two of them held lasguns in their hands, watching the ruined landscape with a lazy interest. I was too far to tell if they were mutant or merely ugly, their faces mangled from some attack or cursed to them by inbred genetics. Two minutes slid by, and the boat disappeared beyond the last vestiges of sight. I breathed a sigh of relief, and picked myself up, helping Emmaline to her feet before my lover gasped. 

I turned, and swiftly approaching us were three boats, motorless and made of twine, riding low in the water and easily passing as bundles, I still cursed myself for not paying my surroundings as much attention as I could. There had to be nine of them, three to each boat, each with lasguns slung over their backs and brutally simple bits of metal curtained around them for armor. They looked like normal men as far as I could ascertain, which was fortunate. Clara popped from behind a tree, carbine at the ready. Emmaline hastily armed herself and Lucius Raj rose from the depths like a sunken god, but I held my hands out, pointing at the captain and thunder warrior specifically. "Hold! Org Hake! Org Hake!" 

During the brief exchange, the locals had raised their weapons to fire, but they kept their fingers off the trigger as I called in their native tongue. 

"What?" Emmaline whispered nervously. 

Lazarus rose beside us, his limbs whirring and sputtering water as they began to move again. "He is speaking savage-lingua. A curious dialect of it, and if my records are correct, he would need to use utilize a few local flourishes, but it is common language on feral worlds." He explained, helpfully. 

"Ock mok en oteppa!" One of the men called back, gesturing with his gun. Once more did I thank Inquisitor Kronus for a lesson that I in my youth had called useless. I could not guess if this was Kator Talon and Son’s of the Fen, but whoever they were, they had not been mutated as of yet. I gathered the one speaking was asking us for an introduction, albeit in a very threatening fashion. I complied. As I did so, Lazarus was good enough to translate.   

"We have come at the behest of the moon god. We are heralds in the wake of its sleep. Have we arrived too late?... No, you have not. If you are truly a messenger, what do you seek to give us?...We wish to cure the blight on this land." 

"How come you never taught this to me?" Emmaline asked softly, downtrodden. Despite myself, disappointing her did pull at my emotions, though I was a bit too happy to be conversing at the moment to be truly effected.

"I did not know if we were going to need us," I told her simply, self satisfied. "If you would like, every new locale we visit, I will demand a crash course in linguistics and any other small aspect we might need. They will be graded reports." 

Despite the joke, she took my meaning. "Point taken."