Thomas Lancaster fought like a man who had never considered panic a useful emotion.
The first beast came low, ruined muscle dragging through mud, jaws split too wide beneath infected bone. Thomas stepped aside and put two rounds through the soft joint under its skull before its weight fully committed.
It collapsed at his feet.
The second leapt over it.
Thomas caught it with the edge of his blade, turned with the momentum, and drove it into the fire line his soldiers had opened half a breath earlier.
On command black, Nero's voice was pleased in the worst possible way. "I see why Sylvia is fond of him."
"Focus," Arion said.
"I am focused. Appreciation is not distraction."
Thomas ignored them both. His world had narrowed to the flank, Eva behind him, Andrea to his left, and the sudden wrongness spreading through the field like oil beneath water.
Then the dead beast moved, not really rising… but multiplying.
