Too clenched with dread to cry out or fall to her knees and keen with the soulful release of grief, she made strangled, inarticulate noises, running faster and ever faster, as though through speed alone she could outpace the onset of a ruin that had already come to pass.
Long before the earliest elves had populated these lands, before they had decimated the Great Forest and built their cities of stone, before they had named this place after their own civilization, which they were certain would last for ever, before the north country had become a barren wilderness, the Marshes had been here, always.
And always it had teemed with life . . . with birds and insects and all forms of animal life. It had been a peaceful, tranquil, enchanted place. Nymphs like Lily would sing softly as the summer wind, and weave spells of nature like flowing garlands.
Not long ago, one could wend his way through the Marshes in complete safely, fearing nothing. Now, the Marshes of Morag were silent. A heavy, cloying sense of dread expectancy permeated the still air. Occasionally a hiss of marsh gas would sound, like a snake's venomous warning.
What had been a place of pristine beauty was now a violated, polluted swamp. Its once crystalline waters were now dark and foetid. The pure, clean heart of the Marsh was rotted and stank of death.