The gift of the gab. Jak had it. A gift for languages his grandmother put to the test regularly. And severely. She, herself, spoke fluent Elvish and Goblin, so they often conversed in those. Each of those came from a structurally-related linguistic family, making them great gateways into other languages. Elvish was useful for all the faery folk, while Goblin had a lot in common with Gnomish, Orcish, Ogre and Troll.

Jak, of course, detested elves and, by extension, their fustian language. Early on in his education Elvish insults were stricken from the curriculum after his gran caught him spouting streams of Elven invective at a clump of redwoods just beyond their border. Jak got a clip around the ears, but it was worth it. The elves had copped an earful too, of that he was certain.

In contrast to flowery Elvish, Jak enjoyed the growling tones and harsh barking consonants of the so-called 'greyskin' languages. He even had a smattering of Sandclan, Sarkian and Norse, which were also harsh on the back of the throat. Dwarven he found the most challenging to master, even though it shared some gnomish tropes and vocabulary.

He'd even developed his own method. A shortcut. In the course of his historical studies, he often came upon foreign greetings, forms of address etc. So when he learned a language, he targeted the question words: Who, what, when, where, why and how. Which Gran had, for some reason had labelled the "Six 'W's". Only five started with "W" though, he'd counted. Twice…

Jak found if you could ask questions, you would get answers. Conversation starters. Once two people were committed to communicating - with a little filler noun and verb vocabulary - you were away.

Often, he and Gran would have language immersion camps at home. All other languages would be banned. He could still picture the two of them - hefting heavy textbooks - nattering back and forth, trying to live their lives as normally as possible. Although normal never lasted very long. Invariably, their conversations deteriorated with increasingly ridiculous questions being asked. Each strove to keep a straight face while trying to force the other into laughing first. And laugh they did. Gales of it would be whipping around Grey Grove. Happy tears streaming down their faces...

A laugh he'd never hear again.

Jak woke and his world came crashing down all over again. He'd spent the night graveside, reminiscing with Gran. His weary wake intermittently broken up by bouts of weeping. And the odd strangled laugh. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.

Dawn found a dew-covered Jak dozing with his arm across the grassy grave. He stood up and shook his head with a shiver, like a shaggy dog spraying dewdrops every which way. He felt clean and cleansed. It was time to go. He had work to do... Then he saw the note. Pinned to the door. It hadn't been there before. Bloody goblin must have snuck by him. Unbelievable. The little sneaks... Now he'd never see one... The note Jak focus…

Strangely it was from Gran. He'd recognise the slant of her spidery scrawl anywhere. He held the note up above his eyes so tears wouldn't smudge the ink.

Jak love, if this note finds you, I have finally gone on and the goblins have tracked you down wherever you may be...

Hopefully you've followed our dreams for you to full fruition. I expect you've graduated from the Kortar academy and are in the midst a glittering military career...

Sadly my sunshine, it's time to come home, your skills are needed here. Find a partner; raise a large family like I raised you. Ever better, ever prepared.

The forest is now yours to protect. You must be strong but not alone. Forge allies to help, strengthen our bond with the Ankans if you can. You can trust goblin queen Phaedra but ever respect her borders. In an emergency you can even seek out the elves - ask for Tr’lloyd he owes us both. Don't fight them unless you have to. Forgive her if you can Jak..

As for your father, you've never asked and he doesn't know anything about you either. He's Northron, his name I’ve forgotten but fortunately for us both he was a big brute as far as I recall.

Your future remains murky and mostly uncertain to me. Though there are brilliant glints, glimpses of greatness shining through. There is also an ancient prophecy I dare not explain for fear of it failing. Just keep the jewel safe.

Grab every opportunity like it's your last. Give it death, my little soldier and know well this old witch loves thee.

He folded the note into precise squares and slipped it into his tunic – it had given him a lot to think about.

Reluctantly, he re-entered the cottage. It may have been clean and orderly again, but the gruesome events of only two days ago had stained it forever in his mind. Out of the corner of his eye he could still see Sarkian-shaped shadows carrying out their dark deeds. In an infernal loop, his inconsequential shadow-self could never stop them.

With a shudder he started collecting his things. Staying would only taint his many happy memories. Almost all of them involved Gran and she was gone. The cottage was his childhood home, and his childhood was over. The truth was, at heart, this was his gran’s place not his. From the minute he was able to walk, he’d adopted the forest, roaming restlessly far and wide. Now he needed to go even further afield and find a new home. Gratified his gran was where she was appreciated, he could move on.

Jak filled two sacks with the bare necessities, plus two cherished possessions of his grandmother's: her grimoire of spells and her glossary of plants and their uses. The leather-bound treasures represented her lifework and her legacy to him. Both were priceless. Painstakingly produced over many decades, hand-Illustrated and suddenly very personally precious to him as well. Ignoring the many well-thumbed textbooks and other thick tomes of knowledge, he made a last sentimental selection, plucking a battered collection of fairytales off his own bookshelf. Stowing it in the second sack and slinging it over his shoulder, he set off.

At the door, he turned back to see if he’d forgotten anything. With a grim nod to an empty room full of regret, he shut the door on his old life. He'd remembered to kill Emperor Rakkesh. Nothing else mattered.

-----------------------------------

The Not-So-Great Swamp, Saidah decided, had been a bitter disappointment. Quite the feat, considering he'd not been looking forward to it at all.

While Ronk held the leashes, pulling the strings so to speak, he was anything but the puppet master he purported to be. He'd idiotically insisted on leading the group in single file through the marshes. The hounds cheerfully sniffed and scuffed muddy bootprints that Saidah and everyone else could clearly see from their place further and farther down the line. Half-an-hour later, the tracks ended abruptly. Now the hounds will prove their worth, Saidah thought. But they didn't. Let loose, they went wither and thither, though thankfully not hither, obfuscating the already obscure tracks.

"Look, Ralf," Ronk spoke, waving a waxen broadleaf in one hand. "Might've been a fight here, but someone done dragged some branches around, like enough those branches over there," he said, pointing at two broken and partially denuded boughs lying in mud a dozen feet to Saidah's right.

"Oi, Sark," a particularly ugly ruffian shouted back down the line. "If you want to see your friends again, go git them branches!"

"How will that help find them?"

"If you fetch them branches, I bet you anything you'll unearth at least one of your lot," Ugly replied, nodding confidently at the others.

A nod's as good as a wink to a blind man, and soon everyone but Maggard was egging him on. Against his better judgment, Saidah took a tentative step toward the branches. Then another. Behind him, the crowd crowed with a chorus of "oohs" and "ahhs". He took a third step, teetered on his front foot then tumbled forward into the muck and started to sink.

Farrakin quicksand! He panicked, frantically thrashing about as his torso began to be swallowed.

This was it! He was going to meet the maker. He held up his hand to hurl a death curse, and felt a thick cord slither across his palm and thud into the mud behind him. Desperately he grasped around and got a grip on the braided rope. A prolonged sucking sound, of reluctant mud relinquishing its prey and he was pulled free.

Hoots of derision greeted his mud-caked form. Saidah was beyond furious. The Perugian scum had played a farrakin prank on him. And by the prophets, they found it funny. Several were in fits, rolling on the ground. Yet, none of them were sinking into a stinking sandy-grave. None of them knew the terror he'd just faced. How many of his fellow soldiers did?

Fuming Saidah sloughed clumps of mud off with the backs of his hands. He simply had to survive this accursed country.

"I will die in Sarkia," he vowed to himself, "amongst my own kind, my own kith and kin."

"Well, girls and boys," Ronk bleated at his bitches and two male dogs. "That's why we don't try and walk over quicksand!"

The whole horde laughed like a drain - apart from a shaken Maggard and a seething Saidah. It wasn't funny at all, he fumed. Not in Perugian and definitely not in Sarkian.