“No, it didn’t look like it,” he replies. “How are we to get him free?”

“Won’t know that until we get there,” he tells him. Leaning upon his walking stick, he gets back to his feet and then returns to the beach. Continuing down their original course, they don’t travel very much further before they come across a well trodden path extending into the swamp area. James pauses before it as he contemplates what to do. He glances to Miko and shrugs, before turning to follow the path.

After moving several hundred feet deeper into the swamp, the air begins to smell foul. The stench of decay and gaseous fumes permeates the air. “What is that foul odor?” Miko says, holding his nose.

“Some areas, like swamps, give off odors due to stagnant water and other rotting decay,” replies James. “Though I’m no expert on these sorts of things, just something I’d read once.”

The further they go into the swamp, the thicker the swarms of mosquitoes become. Miko is becoming quite slap happy as he continuously kills bugs that land on him. For every one he kills, it seems another dozen or more take its place. The fact that he’s bare from the waist up makes it even worse. “This is unbearable,” he says after killing his hundredth mosquito. His back has dozens of raised bumps from where they’ve gotten to him.

“I know,” agrees James as he kills another one. “Let’s stop for a second.”

He tries to remember the shows he’d seen on the Discovery Channel about bugs and attempts to come up with a spell to help keep them at bay. He formulates his thoughts before releasing the magic and then suddenly, a cool mist settles about their exposed skin. It takes only a second before the smell hits, the most god-awful smell James has ever come across.

Miko begins gagging and tries to move his head to get away from the smell, but it’s all over them. “What did you do?” he gasps, trying to breathe without smelling which is nigh on impossible.