Titus had lost his sword somewhere in the press. Buried in the gut of a Deep One, the gladius had been buried under the corpses carpeting the killing ground. He had no time to draw his standard-issue dagger--another monster bore down upon him, needle-like teeth bared as it tried to bite into his heavy chainmail. His arm shot out, fingers closing around a scrawny throat. He chokeslammed the Deep One, stomping on its throat and crushing its windpipe. Pulling back to allow a fully-armed legionnaire to main the line, he made his way back to the rear to rearm.<br/><br/>'Ah, crap,' he muttered as he saw some new horror break the line on the right flank. He barked in the Legion battle cant. 'Shore up the right! Line broken! Line broken, dammit!'<br/><br/>The tripedal creature looked even more alien than the Deep Ones. A blind, tube-shaped head terminated in a puckered mouth ringed by bony barbs. Lithe, powerful muscles rippled beneath its layer of oily silver scales. The closest parallel his mind could bring up was to a lamprey, if that lamprey had been mutated almost beyond recognition by some drug-addled, magically-gifted art major. It bolted straight for the Legion's sorceror cabal.<br/><br/>Titus raced to the spell-slingers' aid, retrieving a gladius and pilum from a fallen Legionnaire's kit. Several of the fighting wounded turned to join him, brandishing gladii, daggers, spears, and improvised weapons taken from the ground. Yelling a command word, Titus and his ragtag group of first responders glowed with an ethereal gold warmth, blessed with enhanced strength and speed by the paladin's divine sponsors. Legionnaires hurled pila and plumbatae at the abomination and the various Deep Ones clustering at its heels, landing with meaty thumps and satisfying pained gurgles. They closed in and began to exact the butcher's toll, hacking apart the survivors. Titus batted the lamprey's claw aside as it reached for a prone wizard. He could not tell which one it was in the chaos of combat, but he had more important concerns. He drove the blade up into the lamprey's throat. Scales, flesh, and muscle parted as Titus carved deep into the abomination's throat, but still it came on, swatting his sword arm away contemptuously. Bone cracked. The gladius flew out of sight. Titus gritted his teeth and raised his shield as its barbed mouth descended.<br/><br/>Sharp, bony growths tore through the wood of his shield, tearing it from his arm as the monster shook it free and gouging chunks of flesh from his shield arm. Titus used his remaining good arm--a relative term, really--to fumble at the locks of his dagger sheath, for all the good that sliver of steel would do now.