Chapter 140: Cleaning Up

Just because the greater demon was dead did not mean that the battle was over. There were still thousands of demons rampaging across the battlefield, clamoring for death and destruction, heedless of the fact that one of their most powerful combatants had been slain. However, even though the death of the Burning Rancor made no difference to the attitude of the demons, it most certainly did make a difference to the morale of the soldiers.

With one of, if not the, greatest adversary knocked off the field, the troops outside of the wall took heart and found their second wind, pushing hard against the demonic onslaught. As more and more demons were felled by the spears and blades of the mercenaries, the demon army became less focused and more erratic in their attacks. Fewer and fewer of them scaled the piled bodies of their kin to breach Felsen’s walls as their attention was distracted by the soldiers outside, their blind fury redirected. As the pressure on them was alleviated, the city’s defenders were given the space they needed to counterattack.

The city gates opened and from within came lines of soldiers pushing outward, their shields and spears a bristling wall of martial prowess that shredded the demons that threw themselves unflinchingly at them. From behind the soldiers came a multitude of spells of varying elements, their unnatural, arcane power wreaking havoc among the demonic forces. Amidst the ice spikes, flaming explosions, flying boulders, and blasts of lightning were flashes of a crimson red light, easily overlooked as it quickly came and went. With the help of these myriad magics, the soldiers pressed forward, slaughtering demons and making space around the gates, then the walls around the gates, then more still.

There were also outliers among the mercenaries, more evident now as the enemy numbers dwindled. The barbaric orc of the Flame Wolves was visible to the right of the crescent, the large man ripping through anything before him with a wild glee that the other soldiers couldn’t emulate as their exhaustion mounted. A spark of lightning showed that the soft-spoken knight was also nearby, his shining blade making quick work of many demons. There were also mercs not wearing the Flame Wolves’ colors, such as a woman in green who wielded a pike, her weapon piercing forward dozens of feet with magical force with each blow. On the other side hulked a heavyset human man with a morning star who sent bone thieves and wretches flying with each swing of the lightly shining weapon. The rank and file still had their own powerful allies to rely on, while the demons did not.

Jadis saw all of this from her position in the center of the concave semi-circle formation the mercenaries had maintained since before she’d arrived on the battlefield. Her two bodies, Jay and Dys, hacked away at the demons, though from a less drastically forward position compared to before the greater demon had attacked. They stood side by side, Jay carrying Syd’s lance she had retrieved from the demon’s body, and Dys carrying her trusty maul that had somehow, despite everything, survived the Burning Rancor only slightly singed. The soldiers around them gave them enough room to swing, but remained close enough that they were more in line with the shield wall than not.

Thea and Kerr were both there with her two selves, in their own capacities. Thea did not rejoin the wall, but instead stayed on Jay’s side, acting as a kind of responsive living shield, blocking anything that came near Jay and allowing her to focus on offense while Thea handled the defense. Kerr, on the other hand, stood behind Dys, firing a constant stream of arrows at the demons, sniping many of the weaker ones down before they could even get to her, giving Dys more room to focus on the larger and more dangerous foes. Their stalwart support meant a great deal to Jadis, just as much as the care her third self received from Eir and Aila.

Both Eir and Aila had expended their magic reserves completely in the fight against the greater demon. Since neither could contribute further to the battle via magic, both stayed by Syd’s side as she lay in the mud near the triage tents, half collapsed from the pain and wounds that had been inflicted on her.

Out of her total maximum health of eight hundred and eighty points, Jadis had only slightly more than two hundred remaining after the fight with the Burning Rancor. With so much damage done, Jadis felt she probably could have begged off of continued battle and taken a rest. She’d certainly done more than her fair share, taking out the flying ball of flaming rage. But sitting back while others fought wasn’t Jadis’ way. Besides, two hundred health was about how much most average soldiers had at max and if they could keep fighting, so could she. So, Syd continued to be Jadis’ sacrificial lamb, all the cuts and burns and broken bones from the nearly fatal encounter with the spicy spaghetti monster transferred to the one body so that the other two could continue to fight.

Aila and Eir dabbed at her burns and cuts with healing poultices that they had begged, borrowed, or stolen from the healers running the triage tents. In truth, Jadis wasn’t sure if they’d had to argue much to get the healing supplies, and not only because she’d been too busy gritting her teeth through the pain to pay much attention. After having killed the greater demon, Jadis had noticed the looks the mercenaries had been sending her way were a lot more… reverential, for lack of a better term. Something told her that her reputation around town was going to be significantly higher once everything was said and done.

That or the fact that Syd looked like she’d tried to make out with an industrial oven had inspired a great deal of pity in all who viewed her.

“What are we going to do about… that?” Aila asked, indicating the demon hatchling that was wrapped itself around Syd’s upper arm after being transferred from Jay. “Because even considering what you told me it did, which is frankly ludicrous, we can’t just let it stay like that.”

Syd cracked an eye open to look at the dark thing firmly clinging to her right arm. The little demon was just latched there, unmoving except for its eye which occasionally twitched, following nearby movement. It hadn’t taken any further action since it had released its grip on Jay to hold onto her. At least, Jadis couldn’t sense any nefarious magics or attempts to corrupt her.

Considering the hatchling had quite possibly saved Aila’s life by staunching her bleeding for the time it took for Eir to heal her, Jadis felt like she owed the demon the courtesy of assuming it wasn’t hostile, at the very least. Still, Aila was right. She couldn’t just let it stay where it was, if for no other reason than it would cause problems when people other than Aila and Eir saw it. And even among those trusted two, there were issues.

“You should kill it,” Eir whispered urgently, her brow creased with worry. “I admit, what it did was… unusual. But it’s still a demon! Who knows what designs it holds in its warped mind? This could be part of some greater plot to bring you harm!”

Syd sighed through blistered lips, then groaned in barely lessened pain as she reached her left hand up to gently pat Eir on her purple-haired head.

“I get what you’re saying. Really. But think about the contradiction in what you’re saying, yeah? Either demons are dumb beasts barely more intelligent than animals, or they’re clever fiends that can plan out far enough ahead to try and ingratiate themselves to me to fulfil some greater plot. They can’t be both at once.”

While Eir mulled that over, hands slowly wrapping Syd’s thigh up in bandages, Syd turned her gaze to Aila.

“Hand me my bag, would you please?”

Aila retrieved her leather pack a few moments later on her request. Then, since Syd quickly realized that she was still in no condition to do much of anything, she asked her to dump it empty for her. The contents were what Jadis remembered, her various supplies and sundries that she didn’t need at the moment, but the thing she needed was a simple cloth satchel that had at one time held some trail rations, now empty. Holding the sack up a few inches in front of the hatchling, Syd tiredly commanded it to get inside.

“I said, get in,” Syd repeated herself after a few seconds with no response.

Just as Eir started to speak, the hatchling suddenly released its grasp, squiggly limbs moving to grasp hold of the satchel, then slip inside of it. In short order, the demon was nestled inside the small bag, slightly glowing neon-blue eye staring out from within.

“Stay,” Syd told the demon, then cinched the bag closed and had Aila tie it to her belt.

“We are absolutely going to have to discuss this demon further later,” Aila said with her own sigh, eyes briefly darting to a troubled-looking Eir.

“Yes, we are,” Syd agreed, then closed her eyes. “Just, maybe it can wait until after my face doesn’t look like a burnt cheese sandwich, okay?”

“Okay,” Aila let out a choked laugh, then softly kissed Syd’s blistered brow. “And you don’t look like a burnt cheese sandwich. You look like an egg dropped into a fire pit.”

“Thanks,” Syd groused, smiling through cracked lips at both the comparison, and the way Eir quickly spoke up to assure her that she’d fix everything back to her usual perfection.

She could be healed, Jadis had to remind herself. It was just going to take time. Just like finishing the battle took time.

All in all, it took well past sunset for the last of the demon army to be finished off. As Jadis had predicted, no matter how low their numbers dwindled, the demons never stopped fighting, the last few attacking just as ferociously as they had from the start. Though, once the demons had been whittled down enough, it had turned from a desperate struggle of defense to an outright slaughter as the soldiers turned the crescent formation into a full circle and surrounded the demons to cut them down more efficiently. Even then, the demons were a serious danger, especially since many of the soldiers and mercenaries had been fighting for hours upon hours. Their energy sapped and their health low, the end was even more dangerous than the beginning for the men as tired troops fell to relentless demons that showed no sign of fatigue.

It was in the final minutes of the long battle, the field lit only by magic and torches, that Jadis got a good view of a certain blue-skinned elf with crimson eyes. Hers was a face Jadis didn’t think she’d ever be happy to see, but under the circumstances, she felt practically ecstatic.

Magistrate Vraekae rode upon a dark horse behind the main body of soldiers working to finish off the demonic threat. Nearby was the ever-present red orb that hovered at her side every time Jadis had seen the woman. Only now Jadis got to see what the magic apparition could do on the battlefield. Seeing the elf’s magic at work, Jadis thanked her mercurial patron that she’d never tried any kind of physical confrontation with the Magistrate.

The orb had grown spikes across it, each one a sharp protrusion as long as one of Jadis’ hands. With blinding speed, the spiked ball of force magic would dart forward, spinning like a buzzsaw as it ripped through flesh and bone as easily as crackers. With each rapid pass, swaths of demons died, clearing the field before the soldiers lucky enough to be positioned in front of the elven mage.

As the circle closed in around the remaining few demons, Jay met the Magistrate’s gaze. Her solid red eyes met her violet ones as the two regarded each other. After a moment, the implacable elf lifted one slender brow and inclined her head in acknowledgement, then turned her attention back to finishing off the last of the demons.

Jadis wasn’t in love with the idea of the no doubt in-depth conversation she was going to have to have with the Magistrate, but after the multiple near-death experiences she’d had since she’d left the city, talking things out with the imperious elf didn’t seem quite so daunting in comparison. Besides, if Vraekae felt like she needed to try and impose her will on Jadis after the whole debacle with what had happened in Alawar, Jadis was just going to have to tell the woman to deal with her choice to adventure or fuck off. Clearly, she’d proved that even in the worst possible circumstances, she could come back out alive on the other end. At least, that was how Jadis saw it. Seeing Vraekae shred another dozen demons with her crimson spiked orb of death, she hoped the elf would see it that way too.

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