Swamped

You try to keep swimming, but that's difficult without the full use of your arms.

Fortunately, there's another means at hand of binding her. You start pushing yourself down deeper.

Then you let go.

Greeneye isn't expecting the sudden release, and it takes her a moment to get her bearings. That's long enough for you to push her into the muckweed.

Not too far - just enough to get her legs tangled. Then you get your blade in hand and slice the weed up. She's loose, but with only her arms, she's not going to be able to get back up without your help.

You put away your blade and grab her again, covering her mask in case she tries to scream again. She doesn't bother struggling. You slip into the underbrush, and hope the others haven't moved too far along.

It seems they have. You spot Tom Tenth keeping an eye on three tied-up Marshguards. He pulls a gag out of his pack and carefully ties it on.

"Guess you may as well stay here," he says. "But first, can you get some more muckweed for her arms? Jackson's not here, and he's got the rest of our rope."

You do so promptly, and bind Greeneye as best you can.

"So where are the others?" you ask.

"Marshall wanted to look for you, but Dean said it was best to press on, and leave someone here in case you came back. He told me to return to base at dawn, whatever happened. So, we're just waiting here for the rest of the night."

"Oh. All right."

You promptly doze off, barely aware of how annoyed Tom Tenth must be about this.

You're Marshall again. Your group's made some good progress; you're worried about Stacey, but you have a lot of other worries at the moment, so you're trying to push that particular one aside. Not that it's working very well.

At the moment, though, your problem is that there are too many patrolling Marshguards. Unsurprisingly, the closer to the fortress you get, the better protected the pathways are. There's a few gaps in the patrols you've been able to slip through up to here, but now there's four guards patrolling the area up ahead, and Walter can't see any blind spots. The water's too shallow to use for cover, and the trees have been stripped bare of leaves.

It's possible to go around, but Dean says that route is home to dangerous beasts. It might be all right so soon after the rain, before their populations recover, but he'd prefer to hear other ideas before taking that risk.

Do you have any thoughts?