William nodded and left Atzar to his magic. He’d do as the mage asked, just as he’d expect the mage to do the same for him if their roles were reversed. Here in the heart of the blight the dragon’s power was at its height, and even his own regenerative powers were straining to keep William whole. It was so rare to find himself on the brink of exhaustion that it was almost a novel experience. Almost.

The dragon’s mortal wound made an excellent place for William to keep watch. From the look of the ragged wound, the dragon had made the unwise decision to swallow something large and incredibly explosive. It was humbling to think that even a creature as ancient and powerful as this could lose everything to one simple miscalculation. Idly, William reached out and ran the rough bone of his claws over the torn scales at the wound’s edge. He stared at the image until it was burned into his mind. He’d need to remember Arztshlange when and if he ever started thinking himself untouchable.

The green sea beyond the wound rolled with the same manic intensity that it had for the last hours. He focused, trying to see through the fog. The fungal undead were converging on the dragon’s corpse, William knew, and he hoped that that he’d have a little more warning than a surge of the bloated faces suddenly appearing right in front of him. There had to have been something more they could have done to keep the zombies off their trail, but with the loss of Ioder, Atzar and he had simply done the best they could.

Besides, who was to say that there wasn’t some malevolent entity that were directing the zombies towards their position? The fresh acid that filled the pools in the valley seemed to ooze constantly from Arztschlange’s corpse and William had a feeling that though the dragon was long dead and given over to decay, there was still a tremendous amount of power held within it. Wasn’t that why he’d chosen it as the site of his ritual, after all?

Something moved in the acid, causing a shimmering ripple to spread across the liquid’s bright green surface. There was a horrendous blooping sound as a bubble the size of William’s head broke the surface. William shook his head and eyed the pool warily. He was more tired than he’d thought, getting lost in dreamy suppositions instead of keeping a vigilant watch. He’d suspected that there was something inside the acid since he and Atzar had crossed the river hours back but couldn’t pin his suspicions down on exactly what.

Zombies poured from the mist in a wave. They moved so quietly that William barely had time to react before they were on him. Fortunately the dragon had been massive enough that even though he was in the creature’s throat, William had the space to swing his weapons. He held the bone cleaver in one hand and a short-grip on the haft of his warscythe in the other. Gobs of puffy white flesh and rotting brown fluid spilled over the threshold as William hacked and sliced. His initial attacks held the wave of creatures at bay, but their numbers seemed endless, stretching back indefinitely into the mists.

He yelled a warning back to Atzar when he was forced to take his first step backwards, and then again when the press of bodies started spilling over the edges of the wound. He was quickly reduced to simply swatting at the zombies with the flats of his blades instead of slicing or chopping. An arm or torso that was severed continued to wriggle and writhe towards William, seeking to simply swamp him and drag him down. But the acid pool had proven especially effective as a way to keep one flank clear.

Until it wasn’t.

William knew that he had to flee the moment the first tentacle shot at him from the acid. It had seemed that the fungus bloated bodies of the zombies simply came apart when they were knocked into the acid, but the macabre sight of the twisted flesh tentacles rising from the acid told a different story. He’d been correct, there was something waiting below the acid, and it was flesh-crafting the fungal zombies that fell into it into living, writhing creations of nightmarish horror. Streams of acid poured from warped mouths and nostrils where zombie faced had been stitched together, siphoned up from the stream itself. Those faces twisted towards William, intending to simply pour acid over him in order to add him to the central mass. Limbs twitched and reached for him, broken stumps and fingers alike spasming in time with some internal heartbeat.

A sense of terror welled up inside William as more and more tentacles broke the surface and twisted in his direction. He gripped the handles of his weapons tightly and gritted his teeth, preparing to fight the abomination. Then he remembered where he was and his promise to himself not overestimate his own prowess. William turned and fled, while the tentacles continued to stretch and grow behind him.