Deeper in the forest, the darkness overhead blocking anything but the smallest rays of sunlight. Z looked around, eyes narrowed in search of the expected enemy. Only to find no trace of them. The forest was silent, unnaturally so. He clenched his fist, something was off... His eyes swiveled from the left to the right, he clenched and unclenched his hand rapidly. Yara noticed the way he was acting and gripped his axes tighter. A blood-curdling scream erupted through the forest and everything erupted into chaos.

Spiders dropped from their hiding spots in the top of the trees onto the goblin archers, fierce six-legged cockroach-like beings with rows upon rows of teeth burst upwards from the ground at the same time. All of them targeted the archers, “Protect the archers!” Z roared towards his units, as the zombies showed the briefest moment of hesitation. The undead lurched into motion moving towards the ambushed archers. They were slow, too slow. He cursed under his breath and rushed back towards the archers, his guard close behind him.

As his units tried to peel the roaches and arachnids of the vulnerable archers he heard another of the blood-curdling screeches. He glanced towards the source and let loose a string of curses, from their left wave upon wave of spiders were approaching, led by multiple of the leader spiders and one truly gigantic specimen. Clicking was audible through the forest from the opposing side, he turned around and saw a similar hoard of the roaches approaching. His unbeating heart dropped into his stomach, he had messed up. He underestimated the spiders and walked right into their ambush. Their formation was crushed, they were heavily outnumbered and they had a disadvantage in terrain.

He motioned towards Yara desperatly, “Retreat!” He roared. Yara glanced quickly to both the incoming hordes and started roaring at his troops to pull back. Z hesitated a fraction of a second before screaming orders. “Zombie group one! Engage the incoming spider horde, Group Two engage the roaches. Brainz, Clog cover the Gobs!”

His forces would be decimated by the horde he was well aware of that, but he had to buy time. “Guard on me! Kill the ambushers!” He accentuated his words with a charge towards the closest group of spiders. He smashed into them tearing them apart with his hands, on the roaches lunged at him so he stomped the creature. He smashed the creature into half yet still it made an effort to reach him. He stomped on its head this time and the creature stopped struggling. Spiders crawled over his body attempting to reach a soft spot, his leather thick skin giving them a hard time. He smashed, tore and stomped his way through the hordes of spiders. One of the canine sized arachnids lunged at his face, he stepped to the side and sent a roundhouse kick into its maw as a present.

He glanced to either side of him, nearly all the puppet zombies had already been decimated. Only the large zombies and a few of the luckier tier one zombies remained standing. Doing their best but failing miserably at holding back the oncoming horde of spiders. The archers were retreating as best as they could, the goblin warriors fighting to push back the ambushers giving them some room to escape. Yara was reforming the remaining soldiers into a unit and was making his retreat while putting up a resistance, the chieftain himself was locked in battle with a wave of monsters, he and his guard tearing through the monsters.

Brainz was carefully aiming bolts at anything attempting to lunge at either the chieftain or his guard. Clog was somewhat further away smashing his way through the largest groups he could find.

He had five large zombies with him for some reason. Z took the brief moment his guard was giving him to analyse the battlefield. “Guard! We need to make our way towards the retreating forces! Let's Move!”

Z and his well-armed guard tore their way through wave upon wave of the spiders, the spiders proving as easy to kill as they had always been. Yet they made up for their lack in strength by their sheer numbers. The roaches however were proving to be a problem, they were far more ressiliant. Their exoskeleton was tough and the puppets could not tear their way through the shells, the larger zombies could use sheer strength to stomp the roaches into the earth but even they were soon overwhelmed.

The goblins attempted to pepper the roaches with arrows but the projectiles just bounced of their shells as they approached the green archers. Their warriors formed a line and used their stone axes and clubs to smash into armored pests. They showed better odds, managing to kill a discernable amount of the things. Z and his guard tore their way through enemy ranks to meet back up with the rest of their forces, his guard proving their capability with the smooth way they handled their blades, their physical strength was still at the tier one, yet their agility was markedly better. Their skill and smoothness of movement made up for anything they lacked in strength.

Z met up with Yara and his group and they slowly but surely thought their way out of the forest, once they managed to carve a way for retreat the troops that had the option broke into sprints. Z really wished he had torches so he could torch the place, he had no such thing so he had to make do with his bare hands as he tore through their ranks, tearing one of the roaches in two and throwing the halves at oncoming spiders killing one and sending the other tumbling. Once they retreated a few hundred paces from where they had been ambushed the insects stopped chasing their group. Z muttered curses under his breath as he took stock of his remaining troops. His personal guard had survived intact, Brainz and Clog were still alive... as alive as they could be atleast. But he only had three large zombies remaining from the sixty orso puppets he had set out with. This was a loss.