Heketi felt the warm glow of satisfaction from her belly to her throat from where she stood looking down at the prostrate corpses at her feet. ‘The world is my lake, what could ever possibly go wrong now? The lizardmen are on the run, they left a few pathetic old people to buy time for the rest to escape overland… and all that meant is we got some slaves early. Maybe we can sell them to the humans. They buy and sell such things, I think.’

The bodies lay with their heads in the dirt where they belonged, the casualties she’d been warned might occur were not nearly as bad as any of her village leaders had suggested. The lizardmen seemed to prefer running to anything else, and now there was only one village left standing.

‘Green Claw, wasn’t it?’ She tried to recall the name for sure, but couldn’t be certain if she had it right or not. She stroked the bulging bulb of flesh that expanded from her throat, ‘It doesn’t matter. They have one of the only treasures to matter for war, let the armor bearer and the sword bearer fight to the death. I’ll pick off the remainder.’

She set aside those thoughts for a moment and watched her frogmen and the lizardmen slaves get to work. The lizardmen elderly were not especially quick, but they were strong enough despite their age to at least handle loads of raw materials, and they could dig.

Some were busy with shovels already, hauling dirt away to create a low watery inlet, reducing the land to water level, and hauling dirt away to create hard packed high walls in another part of what had once been one of their villages.

The sound of shovels and the occasional cheers or jeers of frogmen were the only noises of note as the hours wore on.

Until she heard the screams.

They were unfamiliar things to some of her people, but Heketi knew them for what they were. Even among the ignorant however, there was a horrendous shiver of instinctual terror that ripped down the bodies of lizardmen and frogmen alike.

The screams came again, and every head turned to look toward the source.

‘Undead… did one of the ones we wounded crawl into the woods, die, and rise?’ Heketi wondered and reached for her long spear. She straightened her crown and slowly walked toward the ruined border of what had been a lizardman gate, the large eyes on her head peered into the shadowy canopy.

Others of her ranks began to draw up beside and behind her, their weapons drawn up and ready for use, long spears and clubs raised to striking position. Pride swelled in her throat as it pulsed with every breath.

The howling scream came again, vastly larger than before, a chorus of many voices that belied her earlier theory about it being one undead being brought back by its own bitter wrath.

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The trees began to shake as if they were afraid of those around them, bending to whatever forces out of sight as if even the plants hated the intruder. ‘How many undead are there… Do the lizardmen have a necromancer?’ It seemed unlikely, they didn’t have enough magic for that and even if they did, the voices didn’t sound like lizardmen of undead or living nature.

The truth bore itself out when the first of the undead burst into view, ‘Human!’ Heketi realized as its hollow eye sockets locked with her for just a moment, but then ignored her and charged toward the waters.

It was followed by more, and more, and more. A screaming stream of howling undead charged through the treeline and headed toward the lake. The ranks of frogmen warriors tensed, their weapons moving a little as the line upon line of armored and sword-bearing undead ran headlong into the waters, completely ignoring the army.

The noise grew to such a mad degree as thousands plunged into the water, splashing fearlessly into water that could no longer drown them, the fishes broke the surface, leaping to avoid the chaos of unnatural beings.

As the heavy armored undead knights reached the bottom of the lake they churned up silt and muck enough that the blue waters turned a dark and dirty brown.

“They’re not… attacking us?” One of her frogmen asked. Seeing that the undead were utterly disinterested in at least ‘those’ living, they began to relax at least a little.

“Who were they… I’ve never seen so many undead…?” Another older frogman warrior murmured.

Heketi slowly answered, her voice more confident than she really felt, “The Empire lost a war against a new kingdom, the undead must have come from the defeated army… but why are they ignoring us, and why are they here, where are… they… going…?”

Her eyes closed in thought while she listened to the roar of water, metal, and undead hatred.

A grim thought.

A grim realization.

‘No… it can’t be…’ Heketi felt her breath quicken, denial could not change the facts, they were rushing in the right direction, and what else lay in their way?

She jumped in front of her warriors and faced them, her long spear pointed toward her home, “Go! We have to go! They’re rushing towards our homes!” She croaked the words out in thunderous horror and a collective gasp of understanding came upon the force of frogmen.

She pointed to several of her young chiefs, “Go! Rush to the other sites, we’re pulling back! We can’t let the undead reach our homes or there will be no point to any of this!”

“My Queen… what about what we’ve…” A frogman dared to speak up, to argue, and for a moment her fury and wrath brought her eyes to look at him as if he were but a bug that had dared to nip at her flesh, but after a moment she thought the better of it. Her webbed hand came down and covered the whole of the small frogman’s shoulder. “You’re right, we’ll leave fifty here to guard our gains.”

“Everybody else… swim home!” She shouted and they rushed en masse, confident that they could outswim the undead to reach their home and prepare to fight with greater numbers.

Her feet kicked off the water, her spear held tight against her chest as she led the charge back the way they’d come, toward the sacred ground where all their young and families worked, and waited for the promised triumph, for all the lake to be made their own. All were unaware of the danger coming for them, and as such the guards that had been left behind were surely not enough to fend off the armored undead. ‘They looked to me for triumph, if we don’t stop this, then all they’ll get is a massacre…’ Heketi knew, and pushed on, but beneath it lay another truth, and one she dreaded to think.

‘There is a mind behind this, a terrible one, lizardman or not, those were Baharuth Imperial Knights… And someone sent them to slay us all… if only I knew why… and if for sure, could I stop someone who could raise so many undead…’

She forced the thought down, and kept swimming on, just like the rest of her army.