“Think they're still sapient?” Atticus asks without prying his eyes away from their decayed visitors.

“I doubt it; they're exuding nothing but ill intent. You take the eastern side.” Veros urges to his comrade. “I'll take this one. Because we have two people dedicated to ranged fighting, a couple of us will have to deal with a bit of a two-on-one."

“I got it.” The knight immediately complies and takes position in front of Zyra's horse, facing the eastern road, where two of the Hand members are slowly approaching, one wielding a sword and shield, and the other, a spear.

“Erik.” Royd calls out. “Quick, get back on your horse. I'll take this fellow.” Royd dismounts quickly and takes position at the rear of the group, standing his tall shield on the ground and preparing for a fight against the single undead mercenary approaching, which is armed with a sword.

“Are you sure?” The archer asks as he reluctantly steps back. “What about your shoulder?”

“I'll be fine.” The brawny man answers confidently. “Concentrate on helping Kellar.” Erik follows through with Royd's command and mounts his horse, facing the western road.

“Shit.” Kellar curses under his breath, taking a protective stance and raising his shield as he stands a safe distance in front of Erik. Two other reanimated swordsmen slowly advance from the west. “Make sure you help take the pressure off of me, you hear?” The ex-mercenary calls out to the noble.

“Don't worry.” Erik responds with little fear in his voice as he nocks an arrow into his bowstring.

Opting to stay on the defensive, the Mistwalkers remain planted on their current positions and wait for their enemies to approach and make their moves first. Veros, Royd, Atticus, and Kellar try to maintain a deliberate distance from the horses – including Erik and Zyra – to make sure they stay out of harm's way. Due to the mounted fighters' slight elevation, they're hopefully given a slight advantage to assisting their melee companions, particularly the knight and rogue, who are tasked with fighting against two at a time.

Atticus is the first to initiate a fight, with his foes charging in a single-file line; the one with a shield is in front to protect themselves from oncoming fireballs from Zyra. The knight slowly strafes to the left, trying to lead them to one side of the road so Zyra can have a clean shot.

“Spherus Infernum!” The mage recites, launching a fireball from her open palm. It flashes across the air, and hits the iron shield of the approaching first mercenary, who firmly plants his feet on the ground to withstand the force of the blast.

Atticus's first instinct is to step to the shielded undead's vulnerable right side, but before he can capitalize, the second hostile corpse, armed with the spear, retaliates by covering his companion's open side by shortly stepping out from the safety of shield cover and following through with a forceful thrust. Luckily, the knight notices in time to deflect the attack, but with limited options in such a short window, he steps to his right and tries a horizontal swipe at neck height, which is obviously met with a successful block by the shielded undead, who follows up with a thrust of his own, which Atticus is also is able to deflect.

The knight takes a step back and all parties return to defensive stances. Atticus quietly considers potential ways to approach the enemy duo's thorough defense and quick counters. He has to go too far to the side to deal with the sprearman, which would allow the swordsman a clear line to Zyra, who is essentially defenseless if he manages to rush her. The knight notices that the spearman's chest is facing his companion's right, meaning he's focusing exclusively on protecting the swordsman's unshielded side. Atticus thinks the best approach is to try and bait an attack out, but due to the swordsman's dedication to defense unless countering and quick reflexes, the Threcian warrior won't be able to do such a thing on his own.

Atticus slowly strafes to his left – his opponents' right – to make them believe he's going for a repeat of his previous attack, slightly giving an open shot to Zyra, who understands his intention.

“Spherus...”the pyromancer begins the incantation of a second fireball. The knight halts his gradual strafe, mid-stride. “Infernum!” She loudly recites again.

Reacting instantly to the completed incantation, before the fireball fully conjures and is launched forward, Atticus switches the direction of his movement and takes a a very long, sudden offensive step to his right, completely crossing the trajectory of the oncoming fireball. The undead swordsman is forced to maintain his forward-facing stance, as the flaming orb follows the knight's feint after a minuscule window of time. The fireball bursts into small explosion as Atticus successfully completes his switch to the opponents' other side, keeping his own shield up so as to not be affected by his partner's fiery attack.

Once the knight's stride is complete, and the necrotic swordsman's left side is open due to blocking the fireball coming from his front, the Mistwalker follows up with a thrust of his sword directly into the undead's neck. The spearman, after trying to switch the direction his body is facing, is unable to protect his teammate, and unleashes a powerful thrust aimed at Atticus's head. The knight, knowing instinctively that he can't turn his torso fast enough to block with his shield, instead opts to swing his head further to his right, narrowly escaping a killing blow, but the sharp edge of the spearhead still manages to cut the side of his neck, beneath his jaw.

Atticus grimaces in pain, immediately feeling the burning sensation of a gash on his neck, but doesn't waver in his readiness to fight. The undead spearman, now alone, becomes more aggressive, unleashing a flurry of short, quick thrusts that don't allow the knight any time to retaliate.

“Spherus Infernum!” Zyra's voice reciting an incantation is heard again.

Noticing the oncoming attack, the spearman pauses his pressure to take a long step back and narrowly remove himself from the fireball's trajectory. However, the short window of lessened offense proves to be its downfall, as after the fireball flashes across him, Atticus lunges forward, knocking the spear to the side using his shield, and thrusting the tapered end of his blade into the undead's neck, killing it.

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After the second corpse falls over, the knight sheathes his sword with a sigh, and places his right hand on the left side of his neck. This irritates his wound, causing him to bring his hand back, and notices a line of fresh blood across his palm and parallel across his fingers.

Meanwhile, the other Mistwalkers are all handling enemies of their own. Kellar, taking on two undead swordsmen with the assistance of Erik's consistent barrage of arrows, is unable to initiate any offense of his own due to a lack of experience with a traditional sword and shield pairing of armaments. After finding a moment to breathe, the rogue steps back to adjust himself and reconsider his options.

“Fuck this.” Kellar utters, ultimately deciding that dawdling with weapons he isn't used to isn't going to do him any good.

He drops his sword and shield and unsheathes his pair of double-edged, knuckle guarded daggers, adopting a forward grip for both. Feeling more confident in the fight, he allows the swordsmen to resume their offense, opting to respond with deft dodges and maintaining a safe distance. Erik is unable to line up a clean shot due to the two fighters' constant side-to-side movement, making it possible to accidentally hit Kellar instead. Thus, he opts helps keep pressure off the rogue by continuing to loose arrows at the remaining foe, forcing them to stay hunched over behind their shield, several feet further back.

The other reanimated mercenary that Kellar is focused on lunges forward, thrusting their blade out in an attempt to catch the dexterous rogue, who, after waiting for the attack, parries the sword with his left dagger, redirecting it to the right. He steps offensively forward and to his left, retracting his left arm and then stabbing the back of the undead's right leg, effectively disabling it. The hostile corpse loses its balance and falls onto the injured knee, and the rogue follows through with a stab to the neck with his right dagger. Eliminated, the mercenary falls over.

The second undead, losing patience against Erik's arrows, decides to pursue Kellar and tries to catch him with a horizontal slash going from its left to right at chest level. However, being a very telegraphed motion, the rogue ducks and dodges underneath the blade, stepping against the direction of the arc instead of with it or backwards. As he rises again, he stabs his right dagger into the side of the corpse's neck, but much to his surprise, an arrow pierces the opponent's forehead at the seemingly exact same instant, and it too falls, hitting the ground with an unceremonious thud.

“That one counts as mine!” Kellar yells at the noble.

At the southern road of the intersection, Royd is attempting to find an opportunity to strike as well, but his aggressive opponent is proving to be a nuisance – constantly attacking the brawny man while he's weighed down by heavy equipment and overcoming an injured shoulder. Due to his wound, he can't stay mobile very long, as the tall shield he has with him is quite heavy and the muscle strain puts pressure on his shoulder. Thus, he opts to slouch over behind its protective cover.

The oppressive offense of the undead mercenary is starting to make the woodcutter nervous, but he soon realizes that in order to begin his own offense, he'll likely need to abandon his shield entirely. However, it's crucial that he only does it at the right moment. In an attempt to gain some space back and reset the positions of himself and his opponent, Royd pushes his massive shield forward immediately after the aggressive corpse swings again, forcing it back with a strong bash, but not strong enough to knock it down.

The muscular Mistwalker stands sturdily and attentive, waiting for the opportunity to perform a possible plan that can end the fight before he becomes overwhelmed. After a brief respite, the undead warrior takes a step forward, bringing its sword arm back with the intent of swinging again. Noticing this, Royd reacts as quickly as possible by not just lifting his shield, but throwing it entirely, directly at his foe. The mercenary is successfully caught off guard and hesitates to follow through with its attack, deciding instead to lift its own shield, which collides with the the face of the flying hunk of metal.

Royd's greatshield falls to the ground, and before the necrotic fighter can regain composure, the woodcutter's giant axe comes from the side in a horizontal arc, hitting it in the neck with such force that its head is ripped off its shoulders before the blade of the axe even slices through the full diameter of it. The power even knocks the enemy off its feet, sending its lower body to kick up like a nigh-weightless ragdoll.

With his potentially dangerous plan having succeeded, Royd takes a sigh of relief. “Galliford's beard...” He utters under his breath before wincing at the sting of his injury and trying to alleviate it by placing his right hand on it.

At the northern road of the intersection, Veros and the undead swordman he's facing seem to be at odds. They exchange blocked blows, slashes, and lunges with each other consistently, showing little sign of dwindling performance. The veteran quietly wonders if he's fighting too predictably, but then realizes that perhaps being predictable is something he can use to his advantage.

Veros takes a step back to stand at the very edge of his opponent's reach, hoping to force it to resort to thrusts instead of the swings. Luckily, the decomposed mercenary unknowingly complies, and Veros redirects the attack to his left and responds with a thrust of his own – though a deliberately easy one for his foe to deflect as well. He quickly regains composure and maintains the distance again. Once more, he waits for a thrust, deflects it to his left, and retaliates with his own, which is also deflected in turn. He repeats this process one more time afterward, and yet again steps back to stay just out of reach of the undead mercenary's sword.

The veteran stays patient, and waits for one more thrust. After a brief moment, his enemy brings its left foot forward and gives it to him. However, this time Veros counters differently. He redirects the unknown swordsman's attack to his right this time, and steps to the left while spinning his body clockwise, swinging his sword arm around in a nearly full circle to gain momentum. The cadaver can't respond in time before Veros completes his spin and slices the back of the enemy's neck with enough force to almost totally behead it in one fluid motion.

The undead's head swings from the string of flesh still keeping it connected to its shoulders before peeling off and hitting the ground with a roll, and its body falls over with an audible clank of its armor. Thus, the six reanimated members of The Hand of Armas are defeated. Veros takes a deep breath and sheathes his sword, quietly wondering if the mercenaries were even better at fighting when they were still truly alive. He turns around with the intention of continuing the search for a building that the group can stay at for the night, but he notices Zyra dismount and run into the eastern road.

“Atticus!” The mage yells, approaching the knight, who is kneeling and clutching the deep cut on his neck.

“What's wrong?!” Veros asks, following her.

“He got cut on the neck.” She answers, kneeling next to the wounded warrior.

“Let me see.” The team leader bends over and gently peels the knight's hand off of his own neck to check the severity of the cut. It's not a mortal wound, thankfully, but the blood is dripping at a high rate and dyeing the base of his neck and part of his shoulder red. “It won't kill you, but we should get you cleaned up as soon as we can. Come on. Keep pressure on it.”

Veros assists Atticus to his feet, guides him back to his horse, and helps him mount. The group resumes looking for a place to hole up in for the remainder of the day.