If Caelym had been better informed about the annual cycle of pasturing sheep, he would have been more suspicious of any ground that green that early in the year that wasn’t being grazed. As it was, he mistook the marsh for a meadow and assumed the path leading across it was a safe shortcut to the forest.
In the drier months of late summer and early fall, the track through Fernley’s Fen was passable—at least in the daylight—and was a popular route for local men going to the river to fish. Even then, however, they traveled in twos or threes and carried ropes in case any of them made a misstep off the path and into the mire, which had been known to suck a struggling ox down in a matter of minutes. This early in the year, they took the longer path that circled around the west end of the boggy expanse. None of them would have attempted crossing it, as Caelym planned to, in the wettest part of the year and the darkest part of the night.
Caelym, however, was only glad to have just this last bit of what looked like easy terrain between him and the safety of the forest. And as none of the others had any sense of where they were or what might lie ahead of them, they fell back into a line and followed him down the track into the marsh.