[ WP ] Write your favorite part to a story you 've always wanted to write , but never got around to .

Marx stepped onto the field of honor, his heart racing, a small trickle of sweat trailing down his spine. 
 `` You're ready,'' his father, Marxus simply said. 
 Marx knew it, the field of honor allowed no participants under 18, only adults could give their lives to settle nation disputes, and only those willing to carry the burden of the blade. 
 `` To honor,'' Marx said. 
 `` Or death,'' his father responded. 
 
 Marx's scouting unit, 5 men in all, blindly stumbled into the primus' camp on the 7th day of combat, fatigued, canteens clanking hungrily against one another. The camp fires smoldered, unattended, the churned up mud a graveyard of flagons and shattered pottery. A lone figure stumbled out of the tent across the open, hazy camp. Tall, muscular, and aquiline, the soon to be man stumbled to the edge of his tent and vomited on the ground. 
 `` Arcus!'' Marx shouted. 
 Arcus looked over with a bereaved squint, turned back, and fed the earth more sour wine. When he was done, he straightened, eyed Marx' archer, and walked stiffly back into his tent. When he emerged a full 20 minutes later it was with his full combat regalia, all the signs and sigils of his house embroidered in gold upon his black leather armor. 
 `` So, come to prove you might be a man, Mary?'' Arcus asked. 
 Marx' fingers dug into the leather pommel of his sword, `` I'm here to take you hostage or kill every drunken shit in this camp.'' His voice like the patter of rain, soft, but insistent. 
 `` Funny thing you should mention killing,'' Arcus raised his hand in a sharp gesture, and closed his fist. The twang of bows sounded from all directions, Marx' realization tore through him the same moment a barbed arrow burrowed greedily into his bicep. 
 As Arcus sauntered over, he smiled gleefully, pain was the only thing he enjoyed sharing with others. `` Well, looks like you wo n't be killing anyone Mary'' Arcus said as he squatted to look in Marx' eyes. 
 `` You know,'' he whispered, `` I'd take a small amount of joy in killing you, right now, but you never know when arbiters might be around.'' 
 Marx drew a shuddering, heaving breath. `` Kill me, spare my men, I offer the blood oath.'' There must have been a sedative on the barbs. 
 `` Oh really!?'' Arcus' eyes grew wide. `` Swear it now, to the gods and your father'' 
 `` I swear it,'' Marx panted, dropping to his hands, as his face hit the mud he realized he was heading for a maroon lake, it smelled of iron. His men, they were already dead. 
 `` Maybe now that you've tasked what's left of them you see the problem,'' Arcus grinned. `` But, 2 of them are still breathing, and I wo n't kill them, so now you belong to my family,'' Arcus said as he dipped his fingers into the pool and slapped blood on Marx' upturned cheek. He crouched again, the hem of his cloak dragging through the effluvia and earth.
