Cursing, William urged himself to move faster, but he was still two arms lengths out of reach to defend his fallen comrade. He could only watch in frustration as the zombie trio righted themselves and bore down on Atzar.

To his credit, Atzar once again showed his expertise as he clamped down on his screams and then muttered the words of a spell to draw the acid away from his arm. He paused for a moment, marveling at the way that the acid flowed in the same manner as his water whip had. A wicked grin spread across the mages face as he reached out and pulled another handful of acid from the stream with his magic, and then another. Each of these he shaped into curving lines that then lashed out, slapping into the zombies with a sizzling pop. As with his water whip, the zombies staggered a step, giving Atzar enough room to regain his feet. But this time, instead of simply righting themselves and continuing forward the zombies sloughed apart as the acid tore greedily into their putrescent flesh. Three more lashes left nothing but a flopping mass of fluids five feet from the mage.

“That’s damned impressive,” William said and he finally touched down next to the mage, who was busy reestablishing and reinforcing the air veil over his face. “For a moment it looked like you were in some serious trouble there.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Atzar said, though his words were tinged with pain. Atzar had reacted quickly to the acid, but not quickly enough to completely save himself from harm. The back half of his right forearm was a wet, red mass, blood and serum oozing angrily from the wound. William grabbed at his pack, pulling out a jar of poultice that he’d picked up and offering it to Atzar. It was a simple mixture, likely not enough to do more for the wound than numb it and fight off some of the bacteria that swarmed around them in the toxic air. Both Atzar and William knew that the wound was likely infected with spores, but at least this would give the mage a fighting chance of keeping the limb and from being converted into another fungal abomination.

“Let’s go,” Atzar panted, tossing the empty poultice container into the acid with a hissing splash. He gestured and the trio of acid whips snaked back to his side, condensing into bobbing spheres which drifted far enough away from the mage to make him comfortable with their presence. William and Atzar once again started jogging out through the mists.