She went straight at them.

There were three on each side of the crates. Maya charged one group, and the leader stood its ground, rearing up on telescoping hind legs until it was nearly as tall as she was. The two creatures behind it, though, couldn’t push past, and Maya speared the lead monster through the chest, leaving her haken in place for a moment until its flesh started to bubble and smoke. Then she spun away as the plaguespawn collapsed, the two behind it leaping over the body. The three from the other side had closed the distance, but one was faster than the others, and Maya intercepted it with a downward sweep that severed its misshapen head in a gout of steam and black blood.

Four left. Unfortunately, if the creatures lacked the pack instinct of natural hunters, they also lacked their fear. Even without a dhakim to drive them, plaguespawn had no sense of self-preservation. They would attack until they were dead or she was.

And then they’d take me apart. She imagined her own eye staring out from the folds of skinless flesh, her hand twitching at the end of some composite limb. It made her bile rise. The Thing seemed to be red-hot in her chest, pain shooting through her ribs with every ragged breath. Her connection to deiat was as unstable as a stumbling drunk, and she dared not draw any excess power.

Not exactly my finest hour.

But there were children in cages, and four plaguespawn still standing.

Two of them came at her together. She dodged left, evading a pair of snapping wolf jaws, but the other creature’s face split into a nest of writhing tendrils, and two of them whipped along her side with bladed tips. The flare of the panoply field from even this minor wound was enough that she nearly passed out on the spot, and the flame of her haken flickered. Desperately, Maya wrenched the stream of deiat away from the panoply belt, deactivating it. Her skin tingled, unprotected, and the Thing pulsed again.

Behind the monsters, the dhakim woman was sitting on a crate, like the audience at a theater. Her swollen eye flicked from side to side, taking in the action, and she smiled at Maya’s obvious exhaustion. She had one hand on the hilt of a sword but seemed content to watch.

Fine with me. Giving ground, Maya veered away from the tentacled horror and baited the wolflike one into another lunge. That was easier to avoid, and her desperate chop took off a front leg and most of its face. It was still moving, blood spewing across the earth, but slowly enough that she could afford to ignore it. The tentacled creature came at her again, and Maya stood her ground, aiming a slice right through the nest of whirling blades. Her sleeve shredded, and multiple cuts blossomed along her arm without the panoply field to protect it, but she chopped the thing nearly in half, and it went down with a gout of foul-smelling smoke.