Bri hesitated for only a moment.

But it was a moment too long.

Another zombie gator flew out of the water, maw open, launching itself over Shaya’s barrier. Bri tried to leap aside, moving faster than she normally would in her lighter armour, but didn’t move fast enough. The half-ton creature’s maw snapped shut over her forearm, snapping it like a twig and locking onto it as it moved past her, dragging her to the ground and across it. Bri bit down on a scream, teeth grinding against the pain, and managed to hold onto her sword with her other hand.

Adrenaline pumped into Shaya and, with one last yank, she managed to free her axe and shield from the first gator with sickening crunches as the bone broke around them. Before she could rush to Bri’s aid, a pale-looking Oraeus darted past her. Sword braced in two hands, he dropped onto the rampaging gator holding onto Bri and rammed the blade into its eye socket. Fractures ran out from the eye with a long, rippling crack!

While the zombie didn’t react in pain, it did open its maw to snap at Oraeus. The tall, thin noble jumped back, forced to leave his sword buried in the creature’s head in order to escape. He continued to hop back, moving before the gator committed to its attacks, as if he knew how the monster would pursue him. His plan had worked, however: the creature released Bri, leaving her behind.

The gators moved with surprising speed despite their corpse-like appearance, Oraeus’ battle with it already taking it back past Shaya as she got to her feet. She rushed after it, leaping into the air and punching the spike of her shield into its back to slow it down and bringing her axe down over its back leg, cleaving it off.

I’ve got you now, oh spi-

The gator rolled with violent force, taking Shaya with it. Her head slammed into a tree root a few feet away from where Samorn stood, then the gator rolled over her. Its weight drove the wind from her lungs and the concussive blow to her head caused her vision to swim, leaving her dazed on the ground with her axe lost somewhere in the mud. The gator finished its roll, no longer focused on Oraeus, and Shaya ordered her body to draw her broadsword to defend herself.

To no avail.

Before it could spin to finish her off, Bri rammed her bastard sword through its back with one hand, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed against the burning blade, rending and melting what meat and flesh remained on its cadaverous body, but its progress was too slow to react to what happened next. While it was still focused on Shaya, Bri’s long legs brought her to the head of the gator and she stomped a giant-sized foot down on the hilt of Oraeus’ sword. Already fractured from the initial stab, the gator’s skull shattered as the blade erupted through the top of its head.

Shaya looked up at the woman, vision blurry, and saw Bri looking down at her with concern, one arm hanging limply at her side and bleeding profusely.

“Hostile magic!” Samorn shouted from nearby, “Behind us!”

Samorn leapt and spun, looking behind her just as a shadowy snake exhaled a cloud of sickly green gas from a branch above her. As the gas sunk towards the ground, any place it touched the tree rotted rapidly, leaving a nauseating stench as bark and wood melted into mulch. The long snake hissed its annoyance, amethyst eyes glowing as it uncoiled and lunged towards Samorn.

An arrow whipped past Samorn, passing through the snake as if it wasn’t there and thunking into the tree. Then a furry form followed through the air, intercepting the snake mid-lunge. The snake’s fangs sunk into the mongoose’s fur, but it didn’t cry out in pain, instead coiling around the snake and biting into the back of its head. Grappled as the snake was, its shadowy presence didn’t throw off the snake-hunter's aim and it hissed and thrashed as the primal beast’s fangs punctured it. Seconds later, the snake went limp and the mongoose hopped back onto Ren’s shoulder as he approached, looking pale, bloodied and disgusted.

“Clear,” Ralus reported, another gator inert at their feet, skull crushed.

“Uh, yeah,” Ren said, gesturing to the berserk human he had brought down with a stiletto to the back of its head, “Over here too.”

Bri helped Shaya to her feet with her good arm and steadied her. Despite her pain, the ginger smiled at her, face coated in mud, “You look like shit.”

Shaya returned the smile, face also coated in mud, “Right back at ya...”

“Oh yeah,” Bri said, looking down at her limp arm, “I’m definitely not okay.”

“Neither am I,” Ren said, crossing his arms with a huff. He was covered in blood, but it looked old and congealed, suggesting to Shaya none of it was his. “This shit is crazy, I can’t believe they sent us into this already.”

“Me either,” Shaya grunted, blinking the stars out of her eyes and starting to search the ground for her axe, “I don’t think they expected this kind of resistance – the intel was worse than I feared. But, here we are.”

Oh right.

‘Confirmed Umbresnakes are the local spawn,’ Shaya transmitted, ‘they can breathe poisonous gas that rots anything it touches, be careful. Vanguard West clear and proceeding.’

“I passed on our intel,” Shaya forced a smile, and dismissed her barrier spell, “good work folks, hopefully the others will have an easier time of it now.”

“Lucky them,” Oraeus said, picking up his sword and wiping the rot and bone off it with a handkerchief. With the blade clean, Shaya could see its silvery-blue shine and strange markings along the flat of the blade that looked like constellations.

She made a mental note to ask about the blade later, when she didn’t have more pressing responsibilities to worry about.

“Ren,” Shaya said, shoving the re-killed gator’s tail off her axe, “see to Bri’s injuries, at least stabilize the area around the shattered bones to prevent blood loss.”

A second of effort later, Shaya held her axe and returned it to its loop on her weapon harness. “Ral, tell us what you know about undead. Your magic seemed particularly potent against them.”

They nodded, “While Amethyst magic can be perverted to animate the dead and cage souls, it can also counteract these abilities by laying spirits to rest or disrupting them.”

“Why can your spectral scythe work on the undead though?” Bri asked as Ren saw to her forearm, “I thought it worked by disrupting the soul.”

“The corpses are animated by trapping spirits in the rotting bodies,” Ralus explained, “the spectral scythe is able to disrupt those spirits just as well as a living person’s soul.”

“Any weak points?”

“Not really,” Ralus sighed, “they are berserk and incapable of experiencing pain. You need to dismember the body to reduce its offensive abilities, anything less is wasted effort. Destroying the head or torso is the only way to stop its rampage.”

“These didn’t seem to be merely berserk, Ral,” Shaya said, looking down at the gators, “certainly aggressive, but at least somewhat coordinated.”

“Necromancers are capable of exerting some control over their minions, if they’re close enough.”

Shaya looked back at the shadowy snake, hanging limp from its branch. “That’s not weak magic though, I don’t think a normal Umbrespawn can do something like that.”

“You’re right,” Ralus nodded, “It is likely the Ur-Umbresnake's doing. Excuse me, I wish to put these spirits to rest before we move on.”

“How long will that take, Ral?”

“Only a few minutes.” They stepped aside to pray over the bodies.

Oraeus looked to Shaya, “Would you be able to hold back one of these undead alligators if you conjured your light shield over your arm?”

She shook her head, “That’s why I didn’t try. Alligators are around half a ton – the shield doesn’t make me any stronger, so I’d have to push back against its full weight if it slammed into it. As we saw with the shield planted in the ground, that’s still a lot of mass slamming into it at respectable speed. And, well...”

“Force equals mass times acceleration,” Oraeus nodded, “I understand.”

Shaya nodded.

“That’s all I can do,” Ren reported, stepping away from Bri.

The large woman looked down at her arm and nodded, “Thanks Ren, maybe you’re not half bad.”

“I’m hardly good,” he sighed, “I stopped the immediate bleeding, but it’s going to make later surgery more difficult.”

“Good enough,” Bri said, pulling her bastard sword out of the gator with her good hand and resting it on a shoulder, “I can fight like this, let’s keep going.”

Shaya looked at her friend, who looked back at her with a pleading look. Bri’s face was pale like most of the others, but she put on a brave expression to mask her fear and pain. Her pride was evident as well, not wanting to let the others down.

With a sigh, Shaya nodded, “Okay, it’s not like we can just leave you here anyway. Focus on your magic though and avoid direct combat where possible, you’re going to be unbalanced in your state.”

Bri’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded her assent to the instruction.

“Alright, let’s address the rest of our injuries, collect the spawn, and move on.”

“That includes you,” Samorn insisted, laying a hand on Shaya’s shoulder before she could wander off.

In minutes, both Una and Azreon reported contacts as well, which Shaya passed onto her lance as they continued trekking deeper into the swamp. Over the next hour, their lance encountered regular resistance – human zombies that wandered aimlessly, too deteriorated to tell their origins; snakes that were spotted waiting in ambush and eliminated from a safe distance by an arrow or gout of flame; and more undead gators. None of the encounters were as difficult as the first, making Shaya wonder if they were sent their way just to delay their advance. Shaya made sure her lance investigated any sign of hostiles and eliminated them, she wouldn’t want any flanking her or moving against the other teams, and also made sure the bodies of spawn were collected for later sale. The rest of the vanguard reported similar encounters.

It seemed too easy until Una reported a contact and the all clear didn’t come through.

A minute ticked by as Shaya wandered, hoping the scrappy woman had just forgotten to call in the all clear, but something told her Una would never forget to proclaim a victory.

‘Una,’ she broadcasted telepathically, ‘are you still engaged? I didn’t hear an all clear.’

‘We’re fine,’ came her clipped reply and Shaya could feel her teeth gritted through the telepathic bond.

A few heartbeats later, Shaya heard Zaal snarl in their minds. ‘Stupid girl. Azreon, move west to support Una’s lance now.’

‘No,’ came his reply, ‘We’ve-’

‘That wasn’t a request,’ Zaal snapped, ‘Move in to support them – now.’

‘No,’ Azreon replied again, ‘we’ve advanced ahead and I’m sure we’re nearing the center. If my lance can kill the Ur, that will end this threat.’

‘It doesn’t work that way,’ Zaal replied.

‘Why don’t you save her?’ Azreon asked their professor, digging himself deeper into a hole.

‘We’re on our way,’ Shaya transmitted, not wanting to leave Una and her lance without support.

‘No!’ Una shouted, ‘I said we’re fine! We don’t need your help – any of you!’

‘Shaya, go,’ Zaal ordered, ‘the reserve unit will rendezvous at Una’s totem once we clean up the current mess.’

“Time to be heroes, folks,” Shaya said, “Una’s lance is in trouble, we need to move – and fast.”

Everyone nodded without hesitation, stowing their personal feelings while in the field.

They rushed east towards Una’s lance, slowed by the swamp’s hostile terrain, but in less than a minute they heard the sounds of combat: hissing, screaming, explosions.

Several seconds later, they came upon the scene of a nightmare.