The gravel under Ye Chen’s boots gave way to soft, waterlogged peat as the northern bluffs sloped downward into the basin.
The clean river drafts from Riverbend Port vanished behind a wall of warm, stagnant air that tasted of boiled brass and rotting vegetation.
Before him, the Southern Swamps stretched across the horizon under a low ceiling of yellow-green vapor, where bloated ironwood trunks rose from black water, their dead branches heavy with clumps of weeping viper moss that dripped poisonous oil into the bog.
Squelch... squelch... squelch.
The wet, squelching footsteps of his heavy leather boots sinking into the thick mud marked every step forward.
Ye Chen halted at the water line, untying the linen mask that standard travelers used to filter the outer miasma, letting the cloth
