Thomas stepped into the field. Fallen Pangian fighters were scattered like lost umbrellas. They were soaked with blood, and some were blown apart; missing limbs and chunks. Tank tracks curved through and out the grass of the field. It all wreaked burnt flesh and gunpowder. Somewhere, across the field, someone was moaning for their mother, weaker, weaker, and then gone.
He stepped in further, his heart pounding under his sternum, his stomach twisting as though it were tumbling down a cliff. He stiffled a cry, and put his hand over his mouth. He tried not to breath in through his nose, but when he breathed through his mouth, he could taste the blood and it made him gag.
He shut his eyes, and hoarsly called out, "Is anyone alive? Hello?" He sounded like a frightened animal, a voice so weak it hardly broke the chilling silence.
"I'm here," replied a voice in the distance. It was smooth, and carried by a dry darkness that soaked through Thomas's felsh and into his bones.
Thomas opened his eyes, then wiped away the tears to see who stood there. He shocked back, catching his balance on a tree. On instinct, he drew his revolver and aimed down the sights. "Who's there?" he shouted.
A man in a cloak as black as pitch stood center the field amidst the bodies. He wore a long, slender mask of ash-white bone where gaping holes in the eyes bled gassious shadow and nothing. On his head, he wore a black mantle with a long red ribbon tied around forehead, hanging over a shoulder and resting on his chest. He looked like a pillar carved from burnt wood.
"Me," the man continued continued. He didn't move as he spoke, and the faint breeze passed right through him; perhaps he was really was made of wood.
Thomas slowly lowered the revolver's aim to the ground. His breath came to a halt in his throat, the air in his lungs felt too heavy. He asked, "Are you death?"
The creature shook its head, and the beak on the mask waved stiffly with the motion. "I am not," it replied.
"Then who are you?"
"I am His emissary."
Var's Proxi-god, Thomas realized. Death incarnate. He aimed the gun at him again. His brows furled tightly. "Did you do this?" he asked, heat in his voice.
It shook its head again. "No," he answered.
Thomas felt a chill in his bones when the man in black spoke. The hairs on his arms stood up. "Then why are you here?"
The words flowed from behind his mask too gently, too carefully. "I'm here to escort them." He leaned down to a body beside him - a green-scaled man with the Briaskain Nationalist's bandana tied around his shoulder - and an arm wrapped in black rags reached out from the man's cloak and took the corpse's scaley wrist.
Thomas cocked the revolver's hammer back. His eyes centered the barrel right over the man's white mask. "Stop it! Look at me!" he shouted.
The man in black pulled the body back to its feet, no blood-marks or holes in his clothes or bruises or anything. The Pangian smiled, and thanked the man in black.
"Look at me!" Thomas screamed.
Suddenly, the grass in the field shuffled and the bodies all began to wriggle back to life, as though waking from a nap. The climbed to their feet, silently, too easily. They walked as though they were in a dream, and the man in black were pulling their strings.
Thomas pulled the trigger. The gun's chamber flashed low and a cloud of smoke shot out from behind the hammer. The man in black watched motionlessly as Thomas pulled the trigger again, moving to the next chamber and firing. Another cloud of vapor ejected from the back of the gun. Another dud. He screamed restlessly through his teeth.
Hundreds of Pangian soldiers were walking now, limply migrating to the other side of the field and leaving through the trees.
The man in black, Var's emissary threw out his arm with the side of his cloak hanging out like a great black wing. As Thomas opened his gun and fiddled around to replace the bullets, the man asked, "Do you like to play chess, Thomas Stroh?"
Thomas's fingers suddenly went stiff, like the tendons turned to strone under his skin. He felt cold, dropped the revolver from his grasp, hitting the grass with a faint thump. He looked up, meeting his eyes with the all-consuming darkness that bled from the holes in the man's mask. Lost for words, he wanted to scream.
"It's only natural for the living to fear death," continued the man in black. "Perhaps we'll enjoy a game one day."
His lips trembled. "What happens if you win?"
The tone changed, now carrying a sullen warmth in it. "You might see me in a better light," he answered.
"And if I win?"
By now the bodies of the soldiers had all left into the forest, veiled by darkness and brush; gone forever. The man shut his cloak, turning to follow.
Thomas grabbed his gun from the grass and started running after him. "Hey! Did you hear me?" His eyes glazed over. He couldn't carry himself to run; his stomach felt full of rocks. "What happens if I win?" he shouted again, pleading.
He tripped, throwing himself face-first into the grass. He pulled himself up, and he crawled onto a corpse covered with flies, his fingers wandering into a cold, wet wound. He shrieked, crawled off and desperately tried to wipe the blood from his hand on his pants. Looking around, the bodies were in the exact same place in the field as they were when he entered. The smell of immolation was present again, and he held his breath. He lept to his feet, looking frantically over his shoulders for the man in black.

A voice dreaded from behind him. "Oh Li'Athra..."
Thomas turned on split-instinct to face his spectators. It was Bronze and one of the squad members standing at the treeline. The squad member covered his mouth, fell to his knees in the grass and started dry-heaving. Bronze seemed unaffected by the miathsma.
Bronze put his hands to his mouth and shouted out at Thomas. "What are you doing?"
The squad-member, a blue-scaled Pangian of fun-sized build, added panically, "What happened?"
Thomas frowned, befuddled. "It wasn't me."
"Well duh!" exclaimed Bronze loudly. "Why are you standing there?"
Thomas's fingers wandered over to the grip of his revolver, still snug in the holster by his side. "Did you see anyone?" he shouted back.
Bronze raises an eyebrow. "Besides the dead people? No." He added, "Did you?"
Thomas slowly shook his head and shrugged again. "I don't know."
"Thomas, you need to get some sleep," replied Bronze.
He nodded repeatedly. "Good idea..." He treaded back to join the two and they left the field. They were silent for the long walk back to camp. Halfway there, working their way over massive treeroots, Thomas says, "You know, guys. Some of them were still alive when I got there."
Bronze nods.
The other squad member replies, "And?"
"Well it means we aren't too far behind them."
Bronze pulls himself over the giant root. "Or they aren't too far behind us," he argues.
They sit on the thought for the rest of the way back.