Fionn wasted no time. He raised his war horn to his lips through the narrow slit in his helmet and blew three short, sharp notes followed by a long one. Immediately, the warriors with him began to step backwards carefully, contracting their formation into a more defensively-oriented one; he would allow the gargoyles to distract the manikins and preserve his own manpower as best he could. If the boy did not complete his mission, the best chance for the rest of them to survive was now to let the gargoyles do the bulk of the work.
Even despite the tighter formation and the help from the Sapphire Sky gargoyles, the sheer incredible number of undead still caused casualties. They swarmed over each other in a mad rush to reach the centaurs. None of them fought with any skill beyond that of a rabid beast, but there were ten or more manikins for each centaur and even the best discipline, highest skill, and sturdiest armor would eventually fall to such numbers. Even the gargoyles were struggling; Fionn saw one pulled to the ground and buried under a pile of dead flesh, although it did eventually throw off its attackers and rise into the air on its massive stony wings again.
Then he heard a shout behind him. “The vines! Warleader, the vines!” Fionn whirled in place, trusting his heavy armor and thick hide to protect him from any opportunistic attacks while he assessed the new threat. What he saw chilled him to the bone. The space in the center of the Starchasers’ circular formation was left open as a safe place for their wounded and healers, and to drag the dead to in order to prevent gaps in the lines. Unfortunately, the enemy was even more insidious than Fionn had thought; dozens of dried, brown-gray vines were bursting from the ground and attacking the wounded. Even as he began to charge to their aid, he saw one set of vines completely emerge from the ground like snakes and wrap themselves around and through the mangled corpse of a dead warrior, which immediately rose to its legs and started to attack its former allies.
Before he could reach the healers, a veritable thicket of vines rose out of the ground. Fionn and several other warriors who heard the shout hacked and cut their way through the multitude of vines, but even as they destroyed one vine, two more broke through the ground to fight against them. As mightily as he struggled, Fionn was unable to save either healer as the vines and manikins swarmed them, cut them down, and then desecrated their corpses by raising them as new manikins. He raised his horn to his lips to sound the retreat, but a vine snatched it out of his hand before he could blow the first note.
As many fights as Fionn had seen, this was the worst. He cursed himself for delaying this so long, and prepared himself to meet his end at last. At least he would go down fighting, not die in bed of age or disease.
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