"Your contact didn't get cold feet all of a sudden, did they, Natty?"
"Not a chance. He was very clear about the orders for tonight."
"Maybe we should turn around and get better bearings."
"I'm fine with that."
"Me too. I suddenly have the creeps. Like we're being followed."
I started to laugh again as I went to turn around. "Maybe it's a to-"
I smacked really hard into something that felt like a boulder and dropped into the mud with a pained grunt, holding my nose, which was now pretty badly bleeding. 
Despite the blood, I could still smell the stench of it. Scum, rot, mold. I could hear a low rumbling, like a hungry stomach, or the beginning of a feral growl. Hot, fetid air washed over me and I tried not to heave. 
I looked up. Right into the mouth of a very angry Dugbog.
Poppy shrieked. "ELENA!"
I somehow managed to dive out of the way just as the Dugbog's tongue came shooting out from between its teeth, and scrambled to my feet. 
Natty and Poppy both started attacking it, but it didn't last very long, as it had apparently been stalking us, and brought friends. 
Three of us versus five of them. 
They were all ugly as sin, covered in moss and mud and stone, all manners of swamp juice and leftover entrails from their previous meals. One had a mushroom growing directly out of its eye and another still had a half eaten deer hanging out of its mouth. 
I wasn't going to have much time to appreciate the hideousness of all the Dugbogs individually, noticing that one of them was winding its tongue up to attack. I shot a severing charm at it and it screeched before dying as the charm cut straight through its mouth and onward. Dugbogs were tough as nails but if you could get at their tongues or stomach, they were dead pretty quickly. 
"Go for their tongues!"
"I don't fancy them like that, Elena!!"
I cracked up laughing as I tried to scramble over to help Poppy, who had two of them ganging up on her. She was starting to stumble. But then I did as well, my foot catching a tree root.
 "Stupefy!"  I managed to get the cast off as I went belly first into the snow and freezing mud. The spell smacked into the Dugbog, stopping it from moving just long enough for Poppy to gain her footing and back up, casting bombarda at both of them.
The entire area exploded for a second, blowing Poppy backward due to her proximity. One of the Dugbogs went down but the other one reared up to attack her just as I got to my feet. "Flipendo!"
Onto its back it went, and thankfully a few more attacks from Poppy and I caused it to still in its movements before it got the chance to right itself.
Natty managed to make decent work of the ones she was dealing with, but one launched itself at her and she couldn't get out of the way fast enough, Poppy got it down and the two of us had to haul it off of her, which was no easy feat. 
She was shaking, but laughing. "Thanks for that."
We were covered in filth, out of breath, and my nose was still bleeding, but...the Dugbogs didn't care about that. Three more of them rose from the mud or behind rocks and started advancing on us. 
We looked at each other. Smiled. And raised our wands.

~~~Harlow
It was...entertaining, watching the three of them.
Miss Varris, especially. I hadn't the mind to appreciate her abilities that first time. For obvious reasons. There was no doubt in my mind as I watched her and her friends, how she'd accomplished what she had her fifth year. She moved like one of Rookwood's assassins.  Truthfully, not even that, considering she'd dispatched most of those with little to no problem as well.
But her luck was going to run out. See, people in my profession have such a bad reputation. But we work hard! Really we do. 
People think we just rush in, grab a beast or two, and haul them off.
But it isn't like that.
We track them first. We watch. We wait. We don't make a move to capture or kill until we know how an animal fights, how they react when backed into a corner, or how they tear something apart. Are they pack hunters, or are they predatory singular killing machines no matter what?
Right now all I'm doing is watching. Waiting.
Wave after wave charged after them, and I just sat and watched from the window of a little travelers shack as the moon lit up their forms. I learned pretty quickly some of the basic fighting patterns of all three. It was enough to form an initial assessment, at least.
Miss Onai and Sweeting were pack hunters. Not bad at all in a fight alone, but when the pressure was really put onto them they'd start to flounder until help arrived. 
Miss Varris...was the killing machine. I could tell by the way that she bent, swayed, and cast, that she'd claw her way out of hell if she had to in order to win a fight. Failure wasn't an option for her, it simply didn't register in her mind that she may not win. And why would it? She hadn't lost. Yet.
I didn't stay to the conclusion of their encounter. I had what I needed, for now.
The Dugbogs were a nice choice. Maybe I needed to go easier on the kid.
 He'd done a good job.