"In our world," Jack said carefully, studying the bridge with concern, "When the wildlife grows quiet, it's either because it's about to rain, or they're afraid of something."

"Do you have rivals who would think it right to ambush you?" he asks Silbermine softly. "I wonder if we were to move back, if others would appear?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, keeping his voice light as he bowed slightly towards the other members of the crew, "it is now the spot in this evening's program for you to prepare what weapons you have, as I feel the necessity of using them is nigh upon us."

Whoever was out there waiting, Hopefully they weren't too deep into their trap. But then he doubted they expected a walking, burning tree mage to land in it with them.

"Apparently, we are fated to live in interesting times," he shrugs.

Itxaro studied the collapsed bridge. There were stone bridges on Earth of similar design that stood for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; they didn't just collapse for no reason, especially if they were maintained as Silbermine suggested. She took note of the large stones just peaking over the edge of the waterline like crocodiles. It would be dangerous to cross loaded down with equipment as they were, and the receding waters were still moving quickly. Itxaro shifted the weight of her heavy pack on her shoulders and looked to the others uneasily.

"Whatever we do, we should probably do it fast. Get a fire going and post sentries, or get our asses across this river. I don't like the looks of this place anymore." Throughout their journey, Itxaro had been endlessly fascinated with the biome's rich and diverse wildlife, but now the swamp had taken on a sinister, almost malevolent quality that awoke in her a primal fear she kept in check. For now.

At Mallory's urging, Itxaro cautiously drew her revolver and her body relaxed some, the weapon's weight reassuring her. That, and the training she'd received back at the Jotunheim meant Itxaro actually knew how to use it now. Somewhat. She compulsively checked the weapon's cylinder and positioned herself between Shirik and Silbermine. She thought of the demons the Glenn lord had mentioned the other day. A year ago, she would have deemed such a thing impossible, but now, with magic and aliens abound, who knew?

The group seemed indecisive, so the engineer took the initiative. "I remember reading somewhere the best way through an ambush is to power through. So, ladies first?" Itxaro suggested as she slowly walked to the collapsed bridge, studying the route she might take through the broken stones as if it were a puzzle. Itxaro holstered her gun again unclasped her pack's front strap, took a deep breath, and leapt to the first small stone. Itxaro yelped as she nearly lost her footing on the wet rock, but with some clever flailing she managed to regain her balance. She glanced back to the others sheepishly before hopping to the next stone, this time more cautiously.

---

However long the silence had been going on, Kareet did not have time to discern its nature before the situation changed. Kareet had stood up and was pacing down the middle of the barge, her eyes darting around across the surrounding forest looking for anything out of the ordinary. However, it was not the forest which changed.

The shift was sudden and drastic. All around the barge, the water seemed to shift into a substance as black as tar, and about as viscous. For the Humans, if they were capable of recognizing such things, they would see the same looks of startled surprise on most of the soldiers, and even Kareet herself. Across all of her education and experience, this was like nothing she had ever seen or heard of before.

There was not much time to stand around in awe. The barge had come almost to a halt as the paddlewheel struggled to push through. More alarming, though, was when a hole formed in the bottom of the boat. This liquid, whatever it was, corroded a hole straight through the wooden hull just under a Tekeri soldier near Kareet. The substance enveloped the foot of the soldier, who fell onto his back as soon as he tried to back away. Despite having practically dissolved a hole in the hull, the substance did not actually cause any visible harm to the Tekeri. Rather, half of his leg was entirely paralyzed.

This was something wholly, completely new and unexpected to Kareet, but it was no time for wonder and curiosity. In emergencies, survival was favored for those who could be decisive. Kareet pushed both hands downwards, open-palmed, extended them outwards, then clenched them into fists. Body and mind focused as hard as she ever had before, she let out a scream as her hands lifted up slowly, as if fighting against some unseen force. The magnetic field she had generated enveloped the whole of the barge, though of course, it could not touch the vessel’s wooden hull. However, every nail, rivet, steel reinforcement, and the paddlewheel mechanism itself was perfectly vulnerable to its influence. Not to mention, as she had not focused her magic to any specific object, every single magnetic object on the barge would be pulled upwards and float in the air around them unless held down by something.

The barge’s hull quickly began to crack and splinter from the uneven application of force that was starting to lift it out of the water. Raising it by influencing a scattered mass of metal objects was far from ideal, and Kareet was already struggling, but they needed to get the barge to the riverbank. “LIFT!” Kareet shouted desperately.

Zey waved away Kareet’s confusion and made signals that to Humans would be quite clear the comment was made in jest. The Captain then listened closely to Nellara, leaning against the gunwale and enjoying the breeze/sun combination. She chuckled to herself when it became clear that the Castigator wouldn’t answer exactly how many more brigades existed. It was always going to be a long shot.

Zey spent her time stuck on this barge pacing, talking with her crew, learning about what to expect in Arcaeda from the locals, and radioing the Jotunheim. Signal rapidly deteriorated once they left Ertisdea, with the boat putting a large mountain range between them and the ship. She never heard the distress call from the other group.

She kept active as well, jumping on the spot and practising kickboxing techniques she’d learned years earlier. This attracted the interest of some of the natives. Zey eventually realised that may not be a good thing and stopped.

Zey was chatting to the Glen, J’eon, when things went quiet.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, what are those scars on your back?”

She was listening to J’eon’s reply, taking it all in, when glancing around she got weird vibes. Things were quiet, and the soldier Tekeri were looking at each other all funny. Without really meaning to, Zey looked at the river around the boat. There was no other traffic to speak of, where previously they’d been surrounded by a bustle of activity.

Accessing comms, Zey murmured a warning to all the Humans aboard.

“Guys, something has the natives spooked.”

She watched Kareet stalk down the centre of the barge, her eagle eyes scanning the forest on either side.

“Be ready for anything.”

The sound of flowing water changed suddenly to one of…mud? They stopped moving as fast, and the natives sprung into action. It was only after a couple of seconds that Zey realised the river had changed drastically in consistency and colour.

“What the fuck?”

In the time it took her to wrestle the AR out from the webbing of her pack, the bottom of the boat had sprung an alarming leak. Black tar-like liquid shlopped all over one of the soldiers and was rapidly expanding.

Kareet started screaming.

“Abandon ship!” Zey shouted, slinging her backpack and shooting her gun in the air. It had an integral suppressor, but was still surprisingly loud and brought back memories of the hangar bay in Norway.

“Where are the life rafts on this thing?” She shouted, to no one in particular.

Silbermine listened closely to everyone who spoke up, remaining calm despite the growing tension in the air.

“There are those who salivate at the chance to challenge a nobleglen. Not least the Lords of other Keraks along the northern border. These backwaters were not the place I envisaged for a duel, however.” Silbermine replied to Mallory.

Contrary to Shirik’s advice, the Glen soldiers had instinctively bunched closer together around their leader. They were natural herd creatures, and not even centuries of concerted effort to break this by the S’tor had succeeded. This evolutionary pressure had the unintended side effect of breeding Glen who were brave and belligerent on their own, which had a negative impact on the empire over time.

Silbermine brayed throatily as Itxaro stepped toward the destroyed bridge, pounding a gauntleted fist against his breastplate. His knights did the same, and it seemed to lift their spirit slightly.

“We press forward! Take your circle of smite with you, Shirik!” Silbermine called, as the rest of the group followed behind onto the bridge. Eva, in her hulking mech suit, brought up the rear.

The river in its current engorged form spanned about fifty metres. Going was slow, with many of the remaining uneven surfaces being regularly submerged underwater. The masonry was so damaged the travellers had to go one at a time.

Itxaro was close to the other side of the river and Eva was just about to start when Shirik’s demented laugh from earlier echoed around them. A deep, corrupted version of Shirik’s voice called out from everywhere at once.

\\”I haave seen the faaces of gods…”//

Two stooping trees on the far shore crackled. The boughs twisted and bent so all of the white flowers on them were facing the group.

“Shirik, is that you?” Silbermine bellowed over the noise of the rushing rapids.

\\”weep in your graaves…”//

For half a moment, it seemed that even the water became silent.

Then a sound halfway between a clock ticking much too fast and the wet tearing of sinews started. A black object larger than the Glen with four strong legs and innumerable tentacles sprung from the river. It leapt up towards Shirik, all its appendages aiming to grab the Iriad.

Two tendrils as thick as Itxaro’s arms sprung from the river around her and went to wrap around her legs.

A third creature, disguised as a large natural stone, shifted near Mallory’s feet. His vantage point sprouted tendrils and large jaws. Silbermine was in front of Mallory; he craned his neck to look around and brayed in anger.

“DEMONS ON THE BRIDGE!”

---

Nellara’s assistance lightened the load for Kareet, and once a Force mage among her soldiers joined in as well, it was enough to start moving even a heavy barge towards the shore. Force magic was far more well-suited for this task, as the force could be applied evenly across the hull. Already, Kareet’s efforts had splintered the hull in multiple places.

The barge was floating just above the blackened water towards the nearest riverbank. With the near complete stillness all around them, the movement just ahead from just beyond the treeline stood out all the more easily. Several people, about seven or eight from what Kareet could see at a glance, though there could be more obscured by the foliage. It was a mix of Tekeri, Glen, and S'tor, with no standard uniform or markings that could identify them. They did not look equipped for war; in fact, they looked more like hunters than anything else. Except, they immediately took aim with their bows firmly on the barge. They were far enough away that Kareet could not hit them with any sort of lightning bolt she could charge quickly enough; not that she could afford to do anything except prevent their vessel from falling back into the river, regardless. Their attackers had already ranged their shots, so when they loosed their first volley, most of the arrows came straight for the barge.

Vigdis had been asleep for a few hours by then, only woken up by the commotion when the strange black substance appeared. She staggered to her feet, still half awake, immediately dropping to a crouch to take cover behind the boat’s walls. Cover from what? She didn’t know. She briefly considered helping the paralyzed soldier get away from the hole in the boat, but that idea got shot down faster than the Jotunheim. No way she’d move a Tekeri, much less one wearing armor.

The captain’s command spurred her into action, though probably not in a way the captain expected. ”NO! STAY ON BOARD!” There she goes, stepping over Zey’s authority in front of people again. Fuck it, ask for forgiveness, permission takes too long. ”Touch the goo while in water and you’re dead!” she pointed the paralyzed soldier out to the captain. Her first assumption was some squid-like river monster actually using its ink to fight rather than escape - or maybe it was paralyzing them to escape - but then she had to ask herself why exactly K-A wildlife would even have something like ‘a squid’ releasing ink? Could’ve been Merfolk for all she could guess. Still, it was something in the water, which meant their weapons were pretty much useless unless the culprit was just below the surface.

Regardless, Vigdis would hardly have been able to shoot even if she wanted to, as some force grabbed a hole of her weapon and several items on her person and in her backpack and started pulling her up, a barrage of Russian swearing touching a variety of topics streaming from her mouth s she held onto her weapon with one hand and the boat with the other, managing to shove a foot under a nearby cleat to keep herself grounded, at least for as long as the cleat stayed attached to the deck. Good thing the implants in her foot were titanium and not steel.

Whatever Kareet, Nellara and the other Tekeri soldier were doing - and she had no idea what it was - was working, the barge being worse for wear but nearing the shore at last. Once they were on solid ground, they could deal with- were those bows?

The volley of arrows answered that question pretty definitely. Curled up behind the boat’s walls, her backpack in front of her as additional poor man’s armor, Vigdis waited for exactly three volleys, counting the time between them while loading a flechette magazine. This called for whatever spread she could get. Right after the third volley, she popped her head and shoulders above cover and fired three times before ducking back down. Funnily enough, the coilguns weren’t much louder than the bows, little more than metallic clicking as the projectile was pulled into the barrel and the coils slightly moved in their mountings. Say what you want about them, but a chemical propellant gun would’ve had a much better psychological effect on the natives. Not wanting to take an arrow to the knee or anywhere else, she didn’t wait to see if she hit anything and ducked back down. ”Nellara? Your neighbors are a bunch of bastards.”

Mallory's gun was already out, he pointed his weapon at the stone beast when Shirik's blast flung them free of the creature. But while he tried his best, his right ankle cracked on landing, filling his head with throbbing pain that made him burst out in sweat as he barely contained his cries of pain.

Damn that doctor for running off like she did! They had to do this as a group! The lone ones running out front were invariably the first targets.

"It's broke," he managed. "Go on ahead, don't let me slow you down!"

Maybe if their attackers saw him as injured, he could draw them away from the rest? Hopefully none of them could deflect his bullets.

---

Kareet had only a limited view of what was going on around her. The assistance of Nellara’s Force mages made it possible to bring the barge to shore, but it still took every bit of effort she could muster to do her part. The soldiers arranged into some sort of formation as quickly as possible. The first volley of arrows came down before they could fully position themselves, but there were two that managed to get themselves in front of Kareet, using their shields, armor, and own bodies to guard her. Likely the same was true for the Force mages keeping them up.

All around her, Kareet heard the impact of arrows. Some against metal, some into the wooden hull, some into flesh. Kareet saw one of them pierce straight through the body of one of the Tekeri soldiers. It was an arrow shot from one of the heavy bows used by the likes of the S’tor which could absolutely pierce even quality chainmail, and in this case, she could see it impale through one of his lungs out the other side. Though, the reactions of the soldiers was professional and practiced. The front line pushed forward to guard those behind them, holding shields high to protect the head. Those in the middle quickly grabbed the injured soldier and pulled them back, then the Life mage got quickly to work. Life mages commonly stayed in the back of most formations and would use their fellow soldiers’ bodies as shields, if need be. Above all, they were trained to protect their own lives, for they were responsible for keeping the rest alive. ‘Treatment’, in this case, did not involve near so much care as the Humans were accustomed to from their field medics. Speed of recovery was the most important factor here, so the Life mage simply grabbed the arrow and yanked it straight out of the body with little concern for how much damage the arrowhead did as she ripped it out. Sheer adrenaline likely halted the pain, and fortunately for him, it would not catch up with him later. A few moments of focus from the Life mage, and the wound closed up before their eyes.

In most circumstances, the barrage would have continued beyond the first few volleys, but there was something to surprise even their ambushers. They were far away and had already ranged their shots beforehand, so they were not expecting effective return fire. However, the Humans and their weapons seemed to be able to aim and shoot at even that long range perfectly well. Instead of arrows or fireballs, it was seemingly invisible projectiles landing all around them. Kareet could hear little beyond the deafening crack of Zey’s weapon, again and again and again. It could shoot so quickly with a sound that echoed throughout the entire valley. Among the assailants on the shore, one of the shots from one of the Humans tore straight through a Glen’s chest, and she dropped to the ground in an instant. There was no arrow, no sign of what struck her, but they could hear the sounds of these shots flying all around them. Startled and frightened, two of them grabbed their wounded ally while they all retreated back behind the treeline.

The barrage of arrows might have halted until the barge made it to shore, but that did not mark the end of the ambush. A horn sounded out, and from the trees came charging two massive creatures on all-fours, as fast as their bodies could carry them. To nearly everyone present, they were entirely unrecognizable, but to Kareet and J’eon, they were frighteningly familiar.

Zey quickly realised the folly of her last order when she looked around and realised this black tar had risen to the surface of the entire river around them. There was no escape in the water.

“Belay that, spread out but stay in the boat! Round the edges!” She shouted, feeling a strange tug on various bits of her gear as some of the locals began raising the boat out of the water with magic. Zey pulled her comms unit closer but had to hold on tight to stop it floating away.

“Jotunheim, this is Zey. We’ve run into difficulty, I…uh… I'm not sure how to explain it. We’re nearly at the shore now.”

She signed off and scanned the tree line when a line of natives appeared. Squinting, Zey’s features hardened when she saw what they were doing.

“Archers on the riverbank, take cover!” She yelled, crouching behind the gunwale to fumble with her gun. It was moving all on its own, probably because of its metal content, so she wrapped the strap around her arm a couple of times to stabilise it. Then Zey poked over the top and fired on full auto.

Her magazine was bigger than usual, holding 45 bullets, but it was still empty in just a few seconds. The muzzle flash made it difficult to see if she’d hit anything, but the barrage coming from the Humans seemed to have the right effect. The strangers fell back into the tree line, and for a moment there were no targets.

Zey looked around - the boat was in chaos. The natives were much larger and made very juicy targets for the arrows; she could see some of them had been gravely wounded. “Everyone alright?” She asked her crew over comms.

“How could they know we were here?”

Zey tried to contact the Jotunheim, but couldn’t make a connection.

“Jotunheim come in - we’re under attack by unknown assailants. Requesting indirect fire, do you copy?”

A horn sounded. Zey swore, put the communicator back and looked at her weapon. The magazine had another full magazine taped to its side, so she swapped them clumsily over.

A loud, rhythmic thumping came towards them, and two huge creatures emerged. Yelling out, Zey didn’t even hesitate into shooting her second magazine at the one on the left.

“What are these things?!” She shouted, not even sure anyone could hear her over the racket.

The creatures were quick and chaotic in their movements. The tendrils on their bodies appeared to shift in different directions simultaneously, seeking targets. The one below Shirik grasped the ancient Iriad’s foot with one of these tendrils before it was engulfed in fire. A whirlwind of black flakes exploded in every direction. The force of the magic blast smashed it back into the water. A large bowl of steam blew outwards and for a brief second the riverbed below was visible. Then the water rushed back in.

Silbermine and his Glen were much heavier than Mallory, so they merely turned and shielded themselves from the massive blast. Upon opening his eyes, the Lord saw the tendril beast unfurling itself from the nook it’d been hiding in on the bridge. It began advancing towards Mallory.

Letting forth a belligerent snarl, Silbermine drew his sabre from a flank scabbard. By Human standards it bordered on obnoxiously large at over 1.5 metres with a slight curve towards the end.

“We fight together! Lets see your mettle, mage!”

Clopping unsteadily forward on the partially submerged bridge, Silbermine slashed at the creature’s tendrils from the opposite side to Mallory but the same side as Shirik.

Two sizeable tendril-tips came off and slapped onto the watery stone beneath. They immediately began disintegrating into the bridge in a flutter of black grit. At the same rate, the creature’s tendrils started to grow back.

The horrific thing screeched and turned quickly away from Mallory to face Silbermine and Shirik. Losing its quadrupedal shape, it formed something like a black fleshy tornado of fast-moving knives. Without delay it moved quickly towards the space between Shirik and Silbermine where it could slash them both.

“My Lord!” A soldier bellowed from behind Silbermine and Shirik (towards the goal-end of the bridge). He moved forward to assist, but a fourth creature leapt from the water in the form of one giant corkscrew. With pinpoint accuracy, it pierced the Glen soldier’s armour and knocked him to the floor. The corkscrew drilled through to flesh, spraying blood everywhere as the Glen honked in pain and fear. Tendrils unfurled from the back of the corkscrew to engulf the soldier.

Further forward on the bridge, the first creature that Shirik had dispatched crawled back out of the water and up the side of the bridge. It was wreathed in flames just like the Iriad that had cast the spell on it. It went to attack another of the Glen that was hemmed in on the bridge just next to Itxaro as Shirik’s meteor approached the Human.

“Mallory, can you move? I’m coming over there.” Eva called over comms. Her mech wasn’t particularly well suited to this ruined bridge but there was just enough space for her to try and barge past Glen soldiers towards the middle. However, many of the loyal knights had the same idea and were rushing to assist their leader.

---

As soon as they had reached the shore, Kareet extended a hand towards her pack over in the corner of the boat. Since she knew just where she kept her hammer, she could form a magnetic link to it, then pulled it out of its pouch, through the air, and into her hand. Placing two fingers near the base of the haft, she ran them up towards the hammer head at a constant speed, building up electric charge the entire time. By the end, the weapon was wreathed in lightning and still bound to her by the link she had made.

Against any other creature, Nellara’s orders would have been the right call. Few animals would willingly charge in to be skewered by a wall of spears and blades. However, from her experience with the creature before, that was not going to work here. Their weapons were not going to pierce its hide, and it had the sheer power behind it that grouping tightly would only make it easier for it to crush more of them at once.

“No, spread out!” Kareet shouted, looking over to Nellara. “Tough hide, magic resistant. Alternate heat and cold to weaken it.” She spoke quickly and efficiently, as the beasts were mere moments from reaching them.

---

J'eon's lips curled and he began to hum, fanning the gift of flame in his hearts to grow. Holding out his hands, tiny pin-pricks of light appeared, swelling into spheres, one of flame, the other of cold

"You will regret this meal, should you survive," he bellowed, throwing the flaming sphere at the nearest, then as it began to writhe with pain, threw the cold sphere and watched as it sucked out the heat from the creature before engulfing it again in flame.

---

---

Jack fired three shots, aiming center of mass as he was taught.
I hope we're still in range for my implants to transmit this back to the ship, he hopes.
"What the hell are these things?" he demanded.

Hearing Eva's cry, he yells back, "My ankle's broke. Defend the others!"

A tendril beast burst out the water, only to get three shots in its face. Or at least Mallory hoped that was its face.

Itxaro was too focused on not falling into the raging river underfoot to notice much. Shirik's cheers of encouragement. The ominous silence that followed. It wasn't until she heard their voice again, warped and strangely distorted, did the engineer realize something was terribly, terribly, wrong.

And by then, something had her leg.

She tried pulling away without looking, assuming she'd gotten snagged on a branch knocked loose by the torrential flood, but it tightened around her calf, digging into the heavy cloth. Then Itxaro looked. A black tendril coiled up her leg, its grasp slowly constricting, while another crept towards her other. Some kind of snake? Vine?

She barely had time to yelp before all hell broke loose.

Strange, shifting figures erupted from everywhere, all ropes of black sinew striking with deadly speed and strength. "Shit, shit, shit," Itxaro muttered breathlessly as she was pulled onto her back with incredible strength by the tendril. Time seemed to slow as she watched her comrades struggle against the beasts in whatever way they knew; sword, gun, fire. It all seemed woefully ineffective.

No help coming here, Itxaro thought as she struggled to keep her body out of the water. Already she was submerged to the knee, tentacle climbing up further and further. She drew her heavy revolver and pressed the barrel against the tendril's surprisingly yielding flesh, sideways so as not to blow her own leg off, and pulled the trigger. Jet black powder splattered across the wet stone as the tendril was nearly severed from the large caliber round. Her ears rang from the gun's boom and her hand felt numb from the recoil, but Itxaro seized the moment and pulled her leg free from the weakened thing, scrambling to her feet.

The damaged tentacle withdrew just as the other seized her wrist holding the gun. She might have wondered at the creature's intelligence, apparently able to realize that gun equals weapon, had it not started to try and crush her organic arm while simultaneously drag her into the water. Itxaro howled in equal parts anger and pain, her finger instinctively pulling the revolver's trigger. It fired into the air to no effect.

She pulled against the tentacle, pain shooting up and down her arm, before realizing she had two hands. Well, one hand and a prosthetic, but a very strong prosthetic at that. She grasped the tentacle with her unfeeling mechanical hand, and with a squeeze, crushed the pliant flesh in her metal palm to black dust. She nearly fell back into the water but stumbled and remained upright. Her arm was sore, and purple bruises were already appearing around her wrist, but she was alive and free.

Itxaro watched in silent horror as another malformed beast sprung from the water and onto the collapsed, now engulfed in fire. She thoughtlessly fired her remaining five rounds into the creature's back (was it the back?) and dark powder erupted from the exit wounds on the other side. The bullets seemed to pass clear through the monster. "Shit," She repeated, knowing her gun was now empty and the ammo for it could only be found in her cinched-up backpack.