Vella planted herself in the center of the evacuation road when three root-hounds broke through the muddy drainage ditch.
Vella stood directly in the center of the gravel thoroughfare, her hazel eyes fixed upon the muddy ditch where the reeds parted.
Behind her rested the last evacuation wagon, carrying the wounded village headman, three injured volunteers, and a frightened young mother holding her feverish infant.
"Throw the headman's bloody bandages into the field, driver!" a militia volunteer shouted in panic from the cart frame.
"The beasts are tracking the scent of his torn flesh through the ditch!"
"Do not touch that dressing!" Vella commanded with sharp medical authority, her voice cutting through the rising hysteria.
"They are not tracking surface blood... they are tracking the spatial corruption rooting inside his damaged muscle channels!"
"If you throw that dressing into the weeds, you expose the entire rear axle to their underground burrowing line!"
