Amara reacts before she thinks -- she has to, forced to recall her frightening and frightened thoughts from miles away in an instant.  Her hand realizes the bow is useless here, and tosses it aside.  The rapier seems equally useless, but she draws it anyway, already imagining it breaking off in the monster's hide.  It's only a needle, less than that, in comparison to the huge, impossible<em>thing</em>taking up her whole field of vision.<br/><br/>Then Marius is there, and her eyes fix on him.  He is running forward into danger, charging at it, welcoming it.  She wonders, with surprising calm, if even that giant of a sword can possibly truly injure this beast.  In the next moment, calm turns instantly into a chilling fear, gnawing at her heart.  He's slipped, he's trying to catch his balance, he's lost to her sight -- she sees all this as she runs, safer in his wake, the creature needing several long moments, it seems, to remarshal those huge limbs that have already swung at Marius.  Those moments are enough time for her to gain a little, precious ground.  She weighs less, sinks less, even with her new armor, and though the tug of the swamp still slows her considerably, she's nearer to Marius, and that's all that matters now.<br/><br/>Nearer, at least, to the last place she saw him.  Foul blood and still worse fill the bog now, bits of rancid flesh floating and bobbing wildly on the water, in the wake of the creature's strikes.  She doesn't see Marius.  Thorius is there, sword drawn, rushing along with them, but not Marius, not yet.  A limb flails, the breeze it stirs filling her lungs with choking air, almost too laden with odors to be breathable.  It twitches closer to her, lies still for a moment, and her rapier is up and striking at it instantly.  One strike glances off, leaving behind a long line of slowly dripping black blood, but this is clearly nothing.  She still doesn't see Marius, and now chokes out his name.<br/><br/>A second strike, and she forces herself to take the time to aim now.  Her eyes rest on a half-healed wound -- she has no time to try to imagine what, even in this infernal swamp, could have wounded such a beast -- and her blade thrusts there, deep into the burgeoning scar, and now some thick, foul substance like pus flows down, blending with the rest.  She wrenches the blade upward, and at last the beast seems to deign to notice her, the tentacle flinching away from the weapon.  Her grip only just holds -- had it used any more of its strength, her blade would now be flying through the air, gone forever -- and she has just enough leisure to be shocked that the metal is still, apparently, whole.<br/><br/>She sees the bog-dwellers half-digested remains floating closer, ignores them.  The creature now roars up, clearly wounded below.  And Marius is there, and she breathes again, aware only that he is still whole.  She moves closer, amazed as that calm returns for a moment, letting her study their foe, searching for another weak point.  It has shown her her own weakness, proved it beyond all self-denial; now she must find its vulnerable places.