Chapter 102: Chapter 102: Barbarians for the Win

All turned to chaos as a wave of more than twenty demons threw themselves against Jadis. Bone thieves, twisted wretches, and bramble fiends attacked with wild abandon, focusing their stygian fury on the pale giants that blocked their way. They had no care for their own well-being, seeking to maim and destroy at any cost, trampling their own to reach their targets and, in some cases, finishing off their own injured kin still lying prostrate on the floor from Aila’s traps.

Jadis swung at the oncoming horde furiously, her three selves sweeping the area in front of them with their weapons, using their great reach and even greater strength to crush and knock back all the demons that tried to force their way out of the tunnel entrance. The vitriolic, frenzied violence the demons attacked with worked against them as, with each blow, Jadis’ bodies tossed demons back into the horde where they crashed against each other, slowing themselves down as they thrashed wildly. Aila’s untriggered traps were still going off as well, thinning the mob out with each ghostly spike conjured magically into existence.

Still, with so many demons, Jadis couldn’t prevent some attacks from reaching her.

A bramble fiend that launched itself forward at a low angle wrapped around Jay’s leg, thorny vines digging in deep as it constricted around her. Its body had caught onto her partially armored shin guard, but its reaching vines still grasped her all the way to her upper thigh, digging in and drawing blood while simultaneously restricting her movement. Wincing in pain, Jay was forced to ignore the fiend as it worked to strangle her leg. If she switched her focus to her unwanted limpet, she’d expose herself to the still attacking horde. She had to bear with it.

Only, before a few seconds had passed in the hectic battle, the bramble fiend’s hold slackened. Hazarding a quick glance down, Jay saw Ealdread’s spear withdrawing from the core of the plant-like demon where it had stabbed clean through, killing it.

“Thanks,” Jay called out breathlessly, turning her attention back to the demons before her.

More demons managed to land blows against her, some glancing, some more serious. As one particularly large bone thief whipped its huge multi-jointed arm at Dys, Syd was forced to stab it with her lance to throw it off balance to keep it from landing a more serious blow on the otherwise occupied Dys. In doing so, Syd unintentionally left herself open and didn’t see a wretch tangled up in the bodies of fallen demons stretch its mouth open wide, a sickly green glow emanating from within.

The demon’s spell completed unhindered and a torrent of viscous acid sprayed across Syd’s side, some of the horrid bile catching her across the face.

She couldn’t help it. Syd screamed in pain and tossed her arm up to fend off the flesh-melting magical attack. A ball of force magic struck the spewing wretch, crushing its head like a grape as Aila expended a burst of her precious magical power. It was too late, however. The damage was already done and Syd couldn’t stay in the fight.

Syd stumbled backwards as Jay and Dys increased the furor of their attacks to make up for their other self’s withdrawal from combat. The line of guards behind her opened up to let her back away, then closed back in, then unexpectedly pushed forward. To Jadis’ surprise, the guards shifted around her other selves as well, plugging the gaps and attacking the remaining demons with brutal, military-trained efficiency.

As Syd dropped to one knee, her lance fell from her hands as she clutched at the injured side of her face. Before she could do anything more, she felt a gentle pair of hands settle on the uninjured half of her face, a warm glow emanating from them. The pain lessened as the acidic bile was swept away by the power of a spell, the stinging fluid evaporating into harmless mist. Eventually the pain then faded completely, replaced by a soothing sensation as the healing magic suffused her body.

“What’s the word, doc? Do I still have my good looks or am I going to need to invest in a mask?” Syd half joked, unable to keep from worrying about the damage done.

“Have no fear,” Eir spoke with uncharacteristic confidence. “You’ll need no such thing. I’d never allow it.”

Checking her health, Jadis winced at what she saw. She’d dropped far lower from the attacks she’d suffered so far than she would have expected. The bile spell had clearly eaten away at her vitality.

Eir’s healing spell was helping immensely, though. She saw her health tick up rapidly, jumping from the low two hundreds to a little over three hundred in seconds. The real fear, though, was her eye.

Jadis wasn’t sure if the acid had gotten to her eye or not, but she’d been afraid to even try opening Syd’s left eye. Either her eyelid had been melted shut over it, or the acid had done far worse and destroyed the delicate organ. Jadis wasn’t sure if standard healing would cut it for something like a ruined eye. She knew there was a difference between healing and regenerating lost body parts and the idea of partially losing her vision genuinely scared her.

After a few more seconds, Eir let out a weary sigh.

“I’m sorry, that’s all I have for now, my magic power is completely depleted.”

Checking the final result, Jadis saw that her health had gone back up to three hundred and eighty-four. Bracing herself, she also forced Syd’s left eye open, needing to know one way or the other how bad the damage was.

Syd heaved her own sigh, this one of relief. Her sight was fine, if a little blurred from unshed tears that were easily wiped away. She focused on the elven priestess before her, seeing the worried but hopeful expression on her beautiful face.

Grinning, Syd leaned forward and planted a kiss on the cleric’s forehead.

“Thanks Eir, you’re amazing.”

Eir’s reaction to the quick kiss would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Her body stiffened like a steel rod before it seemed to practically melt, clasping her hands to her cheeks and looking down at her feet.

“I—I, um, ah, I—”

Whatever words Eir was trying to stutter out would have to remain a mystery for the moment. An active battlefield was no place for the cleric to work out her feelings. Especially not with what Jadis could see was coming from either side of her little defensive line. She grabbed hold of Eir’s shoulders, startling her into a meek silence.

While Eir had tended to Syd’s wounds, Jay, Dys, Aila, and the city guards had kept up the fight against the waning demon horde. In the short time it took Eir to bring Jadis’ health back up to a reasonable level, the threat coming from inside the tunnel had changed. Most of the initial demon charge had been slain with only a few stragglers holding out. Those various small-fry demons weren’t a problem anymore. The real problem was the grundwyrm thudding its way forward from the depths of the hillside.

Jadis knew she could handle killing a grundwyrm. She’d done it twice before already. But she also knew there was no way she could stop the charge of the bus-sized rock demon. It was going to come out of the tunnel. The only question was whether she and the guards would be paste on the floor or not when it did.

There was one more factor to consider, though. And that factor was the seven-foot-tall orc barbarian barreling across the field straight for the tunnel opening.

“Out of the bloody way!” the green-skinned warrior shouted in a booming baritone.

Jadis didn’t hesitate, all of her selves moving at the same time.

With hands grasping Eir’s shoulders, Syd lifted her negligible weight easily and leapt to the side, out of the clear line the orc was charging down. Jay and Dys did the same, shoving the guards closest to her selves to the sides to get them out of the way quicker. Aila, fortunately, was already moving, slipping out of the path of sure destruction.

The orc rushed by Jadis’ bodies at an incredible pace, faster than even her greatly enhanced speed. Like a cannonball he launched himself over the pile of dead and dying lesser demons, flying dozens of feet in one leap, to collide battle axe first into the charging grundwyrm’s boulder of a head.

A terrible crash of steel on stone echoed out of the tunnel as the two colossal forces met. While far smaller in size and weight compared to the rock demon, the orc’s raw physical power was demonstrated to amazing effect. His axe bit deep into the stone face of the wyrm and as his rocket leap continued to power him forward; the force caused the demon’s head to wrench upward and then back as the orc continued his trajectory past the monster.

Thrown off balance, the demon’s charge faltered and its steps tangled as it crashed to the ground, still sliding forward dozens of feet as it was carried forward by its momentum.

The effect was three-fold. First, with the demon’s forward movement arrested, it was unable to charge out and launch into sweeping attacks immediately, still caught in the confines of the tunnel. Second, the final three or four of Aila’s force traps that hadn’t yet been activated went off, the ghostly spikes spearing deep into the rock shell of the demon, cracking it like a chisel against brick. Finally, the tremendous bulk of the impossibly heavy creature crushed the bodies of the demons killed by Jadis and her allies like eggs.

Jadis had a strong stomach, but the sight of the squished demons being smeared across the ground like the world’s worst jelly made her gag a little. She wasn’t the only one upset by the putrid sight and smell. She grimaced as she heard the tell-tale sound of at least one of the guards puking off to the side.

The orc didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.

“How do you like that you Plonker!?”

The barbaric warrior shouted in a surprisingly cockney accent, clearly reveling in the destruction he had caused. Wrenching his axe free from the stone head of the demon, he began wildly chopping down at the wyrm’s body from where he stood on its back, hacking away at the rock as though it were mere wood. Jadis didn’t know how it was possible, but neither the man nor his oversized axe seemed to care about such minor considerations like how sharp steel edges should be quickly blunted by striking stone. The orc broke off huge chunks of the demon’s rocky shell with each blow, his attacks only briefly halted as he got out of the way of the wyrm’s huge tail that swung to knock him from his perch. Before the tail could hit, the orc leapt off the demon’s back and bounced off of a wall, flipping head over heels to land on its back again unharmed.

“Well fuck me,” Jay grumbled, impressed by the shirtless orc’s display of not only strength but acrobatic prowess.

Before Jadis could decide if she wanted to step barefoot into the sludge that had formerly been demons so she could help beat the grundwyrm down to pebbles, more of the Flame Wolves appeared. Led by the knight with the still crackling lightning sword, the half-dozen elite mercenaries pushed their way past Jadis and her escort, their steel-clad boots trampling through the gore as though it were mere mud.

As he passed the lightning knight voiced a simple warning, muffled by his thick steel helmet.

“Keep back.”

Jadis felt a twinge of resentment flicker through her at the knight’s words, but she squashed that impulse. She’d rushed in to stop any demonic reinforcements from coming out of the tunnel because she didn’t want the Flame Wolves to be overwhelmed. Well, looking back at what remained of the battlefield further down the valley, it was clear the mercenary company had everything well in hand. The rest of their forces were already starting to march their way, having finished off whatever remained of their demonic foes.

Jadis backed off from the tunnel, moving off to one side so that her selves and the guards could gather. It was only after Syd thought to pick up her lance that she realized that she was still holding Eir by the shoulders, the poor priestess dangling several feet off the ground. Not that she seemed to mind. When Syd looked down to apologize to her, the elf was gazing up at her with a silly smile on her face, seemingly lost in her own little world until she abruptly recognized that Syd had met her gaze.

“Ahem,” she coughed lamely, trying to turn away but not able to since Syd was still carrying her. “I would never reject your assistance Miss Syd, but I am able to stand on my own. Also, my arms are starting to go numb.”

“Sorry,” Syd shrugged and set the short elf down safely off to the side of the tunnel entrance, far enough back from the sounds of furious battle that Jadis was confident she was out of harm’s way.

While Syd put her elven package down, Dys stepped forward and took up Syd’s discarded lance, getting it out of the way before it could be further trampled on by the Flame Wolf mercenaries. As she bent to pick it up, an unfamiliar voice addressed her.

“You must be one of the so-called Nephilim I received word of in Far Felsen,” the man’s smooth, vaguely French accented tones spoke over Dys like a knowing professor. There was no disdainful judgement behind the words, only a gauging assessment. “Fascinating. Perhaps you’ll allow me the opportunity to ask you some questions, should time permit.”

Dys didn’t need to look up to see who the speaker was, her other selves seeing clearly enough. Still, Jadis waited until Dys had righted herself and was able to look the floating elf in the face before she responded.

“Yeah, that’s us, Nephilim.” Dys responded to the elf, forced to look up slightly as the wizard floated on his flame disk just high enough to be above her eye level. “I don’t really mind answering a few questions if it’s a give-and-take kind of conversation. That said, this doesn’t really seem like the time or place.”

“Indeed,” the elf inclined his head slightly. “Perhaps another time, another place. You may call me Lothaire. I am confident we will meet again.”

“Dys,” she offered her own name, inclining her head to acknowledge the certainty of the wizard’s assumptive statement.

Without another word the wizard floated away, his flame disk making a sound like a roaring fire as he joined the rest of his company as they pushed further into the tunnel, securing it from any further incursions from demonic forces.

Jadis backed away, her bodies reconvening. As she checked on Aila and Eir, readying her selves for the trip back to the city, she mulled over everything she’d seen and done over the past few minutes. For a day that had started out as something of a bust in terms of leveling, she was walking away with a lot of interesting and valuable experiences.

Mostly, though, she just hoped the revelation of how the demons were getting so far into imperial territory would distract Vraekae and keep the magistrate off of her back.

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