Tyvno leapt along the rooftops of the smaller cabins until the pain was too much to bear. He braced against the howling wind and twisted about to get a good look at the stub of his severed tail. The pain was searing and constant. He gritted his teeth as he focused on the open wound, willing it to at least stop bleeding. It did so, reluctantly, but the flesh there did not return like it did with his other injuries. He felt drained. He’d been in his reptilian form far longer than he’d ever been, maybe that had something to do with it. The Darkness linking him to somewhere out in the swamp told him to keep going, to finish what he’d started.

“Garral? Ivahn? Where are you? Lights have mercy, where did you go?” someone shouted below on the boardwalk.

Tyvno crept to the ledge of the rooftop and peered down at the lone soldier staggering in the rain. Tyvno made no attempt to remain hidden, which was evident enough when the soldier’s head jerked up to spot him. The soldier backed away and tripped, falling on his backside as he tried to unsheathe his weapon. Tyvno dropped in front of the cabin and approached the trembling soldier.

“No, please. No, no, no, no, no, no.”

“Doesn’t matter how many times you say it. It is what it is,” Tyvno said with a hiss.

~~~

“So what you’re telling me is that my house is destroyed?” Amal asked.

“I mean, a little bit,” William said, holding up his thumb and pointer finger with a tiny space between them.

“What happened to the soldier? Richta said he was alive when he left him,” Yorn asked, chewing on some jerky.

William shook his head and looked away from the others’ judging eyes. “I couldn’t save him. The crocodiles… they were like monsters, ravenous, rageful monsters.”

Amal stared at a blotch of discoloration in one of the floorboards, vaguely recalling that day in Blokravn where someone had called her a monster. She moved toward the front door.

“Wait, didn’t you hear what I said? The crocodiles are like ravenous monsters! If you go out there, you will surely be killed,” William shouted.

“Amal, please,” Yorn said, stepping around the table and chairs to grab her arm. “Richta said he’d return. That man is stubborn, but he is not weak. I believe he will come back in due time.”

“I appreciate your concern, but do not patronize me. I know Richta better than anyone, and he’s softer than you think, he’s got a good heart. Too good for the likes of us.”

Yorn followed the flicker of her eyes down to the faded scar of a traitor tattoo burned upon his inner arm. He let go and shook his head. “That was a long time ago. I’m a different man now—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Yorn. We’re all here for our own reasons, why else would we be living in a swamp of all places. I just know that my husband needs me right now. I have to go.”

When Amal turned to leave, a heavy thud shook the wooden door in its frame. Everyone in the room jumped at the sound, even Yorn. Silence weighed on their chests for another two heartbeats and then a louder thud rocked the door.

“Help me,” a wavering voice said on the other side. “Help me.”

Amal reached for the handle.

“Wait,” Yorn said. “We don’t know who it is. It could be a trap.”

“Trap? By who, Yorn? William’s so-called monster crocodiles? I’m going to open it.”

As Amal grabbed the handle, the person on the other side screamed a full throated scream. She froze. The scream faded as he was dragged from the door. William cowered down behind the table as Yorn rushed to the front window. He peeled back the fabric as if he were undoing a bandage for the first time, afraid of what he might see. His eyes went wide.

“Get away from the door, Amal,” he yelled.

She stood there dumbfounded, unsure of what could possibly be so dangerous on the other side. The door exploded into a hundred tiny shards. She flew back as a metallic object slammed into her, its weight toppling her over. Amal fell on the floor, the object pinning her down. She couldn’t tell if anything was broken, granted she couldn’t move to find out. Yorn appeared overhead in her blurry vision and heaved the object off of her. She rolled over, feeling pain in her leg where a large splinter of wood had lodged itself in her thigh. The metallic object hadn’t been an object, but a man. It was one of the soldiers in silver armor, clearly dead from what appeared to be bite wounds on his face and neck.

Yorn’s child began crying in the back room, and his wife was calling to him to make sure he was okay. He wanted to answer, he wanted to go to them, but he had seen what had thrown the soldier through the front door. He heard its footsteps along the boardwalk leading up to their cabin. Amal was hurt and immobile. He knew what he had to do.

“Come on,” he grunted. He lifted Amal up on one of his broad shoulders. She winced but forgot the pain as soon as she saw what was behind him. A man in lizard form was coming right for them, a bloody smile spreading across his flat, bumpy face.

“Almighty above,” she whispered.

“The Almighty isn’t involved with the likes of that thing,” Yorn said as he rushed her across the small room. He flipped the dining room table where William still cowered down, and eased Amal down next to the short man. She sucked in air through her teeth as the pain in her leg flared.

“Yorn, what are you doing? You need to get your family and Merai out of here. Forget me and go,” Amal said.

“Wait, what’s happening? Please don’t forget me. Take me with you,” William squealed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Yorn said.

The crocodile man stepped into the cabin and sniffed about. He seemed disinterested in them, as if looking for something in particular. Yorn jerked open a cabinet and pulled out a massive ax, then faced the beast. It walked toward the back of the cabin, toward the hallway. Yorn’s bedroom door opened and his wife, Melani, stepped out.

“What is going on, Yorn? Why aren’t you answering me? What was all that–” she lost her voice when she saw the reptilian thing standing in her home. Tyvno’s narrowed pupils locked with hers for a moment before she screamed.

“Melani, get back,” Yorn yelled, stepping in front of her and holding his ax in two hands defensively. The toddler continued to wail in the background.

The crocodile man leaned forward like he was about to jump and Yorn staggered slightly at the feint. But the crocodile man didn’t attack, he simply exhaled in harsh laughter akin to sandpaper scraping atop a rough surface.

“Pathetic,” Tyvno said. Everyone in the cabin was shocked at the realization that the creature could speak. “All of you. Nothing but leeches and vermin.”

“What do you want?” Yorn asked.

The crocodile man didn’t answer. He looked at Melani, who slowly closed the bedroom door. His gaze lingered on Yorn for a moment longer, then it drifted to Amal and then to William’s forehead peeking out over the upturned table. Tyvno sniffed the air again and then looked down the hallway toward the guest room where Merai stood peering through the cracked door. He smiled at her.

“Yorn, stop him!” Amal yelled.

Tyvno’s path to the hallway was suddenly cut off by the large lumberjack, who swung the great ax with immense strength. The sharpened blade of the ax head nearly struck the crocodile man in the neck, but Tyvno pulled back and the weapon lodged itself in the wall. Yorn pulled it free and swung again, this time at the creature’s midsection. Tyvno was fast. Each successive swing hit nothing but air in wild swooshes. He was toying with Yorn, it was obvious, and Amal was worried that it wasn’t going to end well for the man.

Amal retrieved the light bomb from her pocket. She found the trigger mechanism and flicked it on, waiting for it to charge. Come on, come on! she thought. It wouldn’t come soon enough. She watched as the monster slashed razor sharp claws across Yorn’s chest, tearing his shirt and staining the front red.

Tyvno saw the opportunity to end the man right then and there. The man was hurt, his defenses open. The crocodile man grabbed Yorn by both arms, struggling to hold the large man still. Yorn tried to break free but Tyvno gave him no chances. He bit down into Yorn’s thick shoulder. The man yelled.

Something sharp pierced Tyvno’s left thigh and surprised him, he removed his teeth from the man‘s shoulder and looked down at the dagger-like object. It looked familiar, something he’d seen the mayor’s bodyguard use several weeks back. During Tyvno’s confusion, Yorn unleashed a sudden burst of strength, ramming the haft of the ax upward to knock the crocodile man back a few steps. That was when the object embedded in Tyvno’s leg exploded with light. Tyvno shielded his eyes with both arms. The light bomb pulsed, sending out brighter and brighter flashes in a rhythm that mimicked his rapidly increasing heartbeat. He remembered where he’d seen this before, when he’d witnessed Richta save Ian Merstellar from the giant croc. However, this trick wasn’t going to work on him. Actually, he would use it to his advantage.

Amal couldn’t see anything. The light burned images in her vision of things that were no longer there. She barely made out the fact that Yorn had fallen to the floor in the middle of the room. Straining her eyes against each flash, she crawled to him, ignoring the pain in her leg. The intensity of the flashes faded, and she hoped the creature was fleeing. She reached Yorn and her hands found the wounds. She ripped away some extra cloth from the bottom of Yorn’s shirt to stop the bleeding. He was trying to tell her something but she wouldn’t listen.

“Shhh, you’re going to be–” she cut off as a scream erupted at the back of the cabin: Merai.

Amal realized that Yorn hadn’t fallen from his injuries, but had been thrown down by the creature as it pushed past him. She had saved the man’s life, but swapped it for her daughter’s. She got to her feet and limped as fast as she could down the short hallway. She reached the empty room, finding only a massive hole in the back wall where the creature had crashed through. The light bomb still flashed, but it was no longer attached to the monster, instead it floated atop the choppy bay’s surface.

“Merai!” Amal screamed.

Her legs grew weak and she fell to her knees in front of the bed exactly where she’d been with her daughter not long ago. Tears rolled down her cheeks despite knowing that crying wasn’t going to bring her daughter back to her. Amal balled her hands into fists and got back to her feet.

“Where in the depths of Burg are you, Richta?!”

~~~

“The boardwalk is busted to pieces. There’s no way for us to get off this sinking coffin. I need to get back to my family,” Richta said. “Any ideas? Anyone?”

The crocodilian was crouching to inspect the giant croc’s severed head. The other soldier—whose name was Arnahlt— had rested Tamerond Blake up against the broken desk. The deputy commander’s armor was marred with slashes and bite marks, but he didn’t seem to be dying from any severe wounds.

“I don’t know, ask your freaky reptile friend over there? I can’t believe we’re dropping our guard around that thing. Based on what? A hunch? We just got ambushed by a bunch of demonic crocs and now, for whatever reason, this one is an ally?” Arnahlt said.

“I mean, he hasn’t attacked us yet. Should be a good sign,” Richta said.

The crocodilian made a thumbs up gesture, then returned his attention back to the neck portion of the dead crocodile. There was something different about the flesh there, not that Ian was an expert on animal dissection, but it didn’t seem natural. Veiny tissue still moved. Hard tendrils sprouted like something he’d seen quite recently. It grew rapidly from out of the animal’s skull and stretched down toward the floorboards. Ian stepped back, but the others couldn’t see what he was seeing.

“Why not just swim?” Tamerond said. “Remove your armor and go. You’ve got no reason to stay here with us.”

Richta looked at his former commander, feeling odd that the man was speaking to him like a normal person for the first time ever. Richta nodded. “Alright. It’s a risk with the crocs patrolling, but it might be the only way. I’ll go alone and then return with the watercraft to rescue you.”

“Watercraft? I’ve seen no such thing since arriving in this town? How can we trust you?” Arnahlt asked.

“Well, do you want to come with me? I bet you can’t even swim. Something tells me you were born in that armor.”

To that the soldier’s lips drew tight in a thin line, but Tamerond held up a hand. “I believe him, Arnahlt. He came back for me once, I trust he will do it again.”

Richta almost shivered at hearing those words come out of Tamerond Blake’s mouth. He removed his gauntlets and boots and tossed them to the floor, then unstrapped his chest piece. Believe. Trust. Not in a thousand years would he have thought to hear Tamerond say those words about him. Had the deputy commander truly forgotten him? Was this the spirit’s doing? He wore his normal clothes underneath the armor, but they were sticky with sweat and it felt good to have the humid wind brush past him.

The crocodilian grew visibly agitated. Everyone stared, leery of the large creature. Ian Merstellar wished he could speak, but his mouth was no longer shaped the same, incapable of forming human words. It hadn’t bothered him until that moment since he’d been so overwhelmed with everything else that had changed about his physical body. He approached Richta, pointing at the giant croc’s head. It was… moving.

“What in the–” Arnahlt started before a black root shot out of the creature’s gaping jaws and pierced his armored shoulder. He flailed as he was dragged toward the mouth which unnaturally snapped open and closed.

The crocodilian spun and slammed his thick tail down across the retracting root, breaking it in half. Arnahlt was freed, and he scrambled back away from the newly-animated head of the giant crocodile. The crocodilian retreated to stand between Richta and the two Empyrean soldiers.

“How is that possible? What’s going on?” Richta asked.

Arnahlt ripped the black root from out of his shoulder plate and threw it to the ground. “I don’t know but whatever it is, it’s coming for us.”

Ian knew the answer but could not express it in words to them. Elek had long ago stolen the power of the mangrove spirit to bring forth vegetative life, using the corrupted vegetation to spread to other lifeforms in order to propagate and take over the swamp. For reasons unknown to Ian, the crocodiles had been the most susceptible hosts, while simultaneously being the most deadly. Ian wondered if he, too, was corrupted on the inside like this poor animal, a puppet to the puppet master.

The mangrove roots spread along the floor of the mansion’s second story like a bed of snakes. Downstairs had already flooded. There was nowhere else for them to go.

“Ian, it’s your time to shine, kid,” Richta said. “You can teleport us, right? I remember the mayor laughing you up and down, but I believed you then and I believe you now.”

Ian had never intentionally teleported another person or object before. It was usually by accident, only if it was within his immediate vicinity. He regarded the giant croc head creeping toward them on a bed of writhing stems. He’d transported that massive thing without trying, maybe he could manage all of them if he actually tried on purpose.

The crocodilian held out his arms to either side of him, one for Richta and one for Tamerond and Arnahlt. Richta grabbed hold of the green forearm.

“No way I’m touching that thing,” Arnahlt said.

“It’s either this or you get eaten by the undead crocodile head. Your choice,” Richta yelled over the growing noise.

Tamerond lifted himself from the desk and placed a hand on Ian’s scaled back. Arnahlt sighed and stepped forward, letting go of his injured arm to hesitantly touch the crocodilian’s clawed hand.

Ian closed his eyes and felt his cup overflow once more. The amount of Energy within him was incredible. The possibilities seemed endless. He felt an aura spread out around him, encompassing the three others. There, he had them in his invisible grasp.

A root shot forward just as he engaged his power and stabbed him in the stomach. He winced and the aura closed slightly. All but one of them completely disappeared with the crocodilian.

Unfortunately, most of Arnahlt remained.