Chapter 245: Wailing

Dys could feel her armor creak as the screaming demon pulled her legs apart like a wishbone. Or was that the sound of her ligaments snapping? It was hard to tell over the constant enraged shrieking. Dys wasn’t willing to be the only one with bones popping, though. With herculean effort she wrenched the demon’s jaws further apart, forcing its maw open wide. Too wide. With a loud crack the demon’s lower jaw went loose, the joint breaking.

A low, almost sub-sonic gurgling noise rumbled up out of the depths of the demon’s throat, the first sound the vile thing had made that wasn’t a scream from the riders on its back. Like a child throwing a tantrum, the demon slammed Dys back down onto the ground, the jarring force of the move enough to make her lose her grip on its broken maw. Dys was once again sent tumbling away, her body crashing through the underbrush yards from the fight.

The demon spun around, its lower jaw dangling loose. Its multitude of eyes stared wildly around, their wide pupils twitching spastically. They focused on Syd, standing mere feet away.

Stabbing the back of the demon with her lance had proved ineffective. The wretched monster barely took notice of her attacks. She was still trying to figure out what to try next when the demon rounded on her. It swiped with its left arm at her, forcing a quick duck and a dodge backwards as it followed up the swipe with a vertical slam of its other arm. Backstepping, Syd jabbed her lance at the head of the screaming demon, cutting and slicing at the gray flesh. One eye was popped like a zit, a disgusting ichor leaking out as Syd tried to do some damage to the abomination.

Unexpectedly, the demon spun again, whirling about in a full circle. The screaming demon’s back left leg caught hold of Syd in the movement, dragging her off of her feet as she was pulled along in the rotation. As it continued to drag her, Syd slammed her lance down into the ground, sinking it several feet in an instant and held on tight. Her short spin was abruptly stopped as the demon was unable to pull her further and its grip on her leg was lost. It stumbled to the side, her quick reaction causing it to lose stability.

 As the demon fumbled, regaining its balance from the spin and slip, Jay’s war hammer slammed into its face, sending its head snapping backwards from the massive blow.

“Eat shit!” was Jay’s eloquent war cry as she continued her forward momentum and hit the demon again with her hammer, this time with a hard blow to its thick neck.

From behind Syd grabbed hold of the demon’s back left leg, yanking on it as hard as she could. The horror stumbled again, pulled by Syd stretching its limb out to full extension. Jay’s hammer slammed into the side of the demon’s worm-like head again, hitting it from the side with enough force that it bounced off of the demon’s own body. In the next instant, Dys leapt at the demon from above, her axe coming down in an overhead swing, triggering Mirrored Strikes.

The demon’s leg was cleaved in two.

Gouts of black blood poured from the gaping wound, soaking the ground around Syd’s feet as she tossed away the massive, severed hand. The foul, rotting stench of the demon’s blood filled the air, its corruption eating away at her nostrils. Terrible screams echoed in the trees as the subsumed victims on the demon’s back wailed and screeched in pain and rage, the horrible noise underpinned by the deep, gurgling base of the demon’s open throat.

Jadis was ready to continue her assault, her three bodies already in motion, when the huge demon did something unexpected again. Thrusting its bleeding stump of a leg towards Syd, it doused her head and body in its dark ichor, blinding her with its stinking blood. The black ooze easily splashed through the slits in her helm, covering her face and stinging her eyes. She began to retch uncontrollably, the awful smell and taste making her gag. Syd stumbled back, fumbling to pull her visor open so she could clear the filth away.

In the same instant, the wretched demon fell back and away from Jay, slamming its body into Dys and bowling her over. The greater mass of the demon’s torso settled over top of Dys, attempting to crush her with its weight as it pinned her to the ground under its bulk.

“Get off!” Jay shouted, swinging her hammer in a wide arc, the heavy head thudding against the base of the demon’s neck.

The blow caused the demon’s flesh to ripple and deform like mud in a wet sack, but it did nothing to stop the monster from counterattacking. Its two huge hands slammed into Jay from either side, catching her between them. Wrapping her up in its grip, it lifted her high into the air before swinging her down into the ground, her helmeted head and upper body bouncing against the dirt. The demon lifted her again, then bashed her against the ground once more. It moved to do the same a third time, Jay’s head ringing from the impacts, but the demon didn’t get the chance.

A sudden boom of ghostly energy exploded on the right side of the demon, causing it to rock to the side. An oversized bolt pierced its shoulder while a large arrow went through its neck at the same time.

“Drop her you bitch!” Bridget shouted as she and Thea stepped up to meet the massive horror, flail and shield at the ready.

They were not alone, with Willa and her soldiers flanking on either side. They’d finished off the last of the twisted wretches, though not without taking damage of their own. Still, Jadis could see Eir in the back with Aila and Nora, pouring healing magic into them to keep them all fighting.

Using her like a club, the screaming demon lashed out at the wall of soldiers by swinging Jay into them. Her head and shoulders cracked against the shields and bodies of several men, though which she hit Jay had no idea. At the end of the demon’s arcing swing it raised her high overhead in one hand, likely with the intent of throwing her directly at the assembled fighters. Before it got the chance to, the demon was struck by a bolt of lightning that ripped through its outstretched arm.

The demon’s body spasmed from the electric shock and Jay was sent flying into the air as it released her right at the peak of its movement. Jay’s stomach did flips as she tumbled through the air more than fifty feet off the ground. It was almost impossible to orient herself, her wild spinning throwing her perspective off. Her other two selves were no help, as Dys was squashed under the bulk of the beast while Syd was still blinded from its foul blood. It was only in the last moment before impact that Jay was able to see where she was going to land and then only because her face turned directly into it.

Jay crashed heavily into the back of the screaming demon, crushing several of the possessed humans that were sprouting from its back. The front of her helm was pressed hard against the broken body of a young man, his arms and ribs crushed by her heavy armored weight falling onto him. And yet, the man still let out a gurgling, outraged scream as his ruined limbs tried to claw at her.

Many hands grabbed and tore at Jay’s arms and legs, trying to hold her down as she struggled to orient herself. The screams were beyond intense, the horrible shrieks echoing loudly in her ears, amplified by the metal helmet she wore. It was hard to even see where she was with their hands all grabbing at her helmet and face, blocking her vision.

“Fuck! Get the fuck off of me!” Jay shouted as she flailed wildly.

Her struggles were hampered by the fact that she couldn’t get her feet under her, the demon’s body constantly shifting and moving. She could just barely hear the sounds of combat going on around her over the screams of the damned, though she couldn’t tell for sure which direction they were coming from. Desperate to get herself free from the clawing hands, Jay started clawing back at them. With a growling yell, Jay grabbed hold of an arm, one of many trying to grapple and strangle her, and pulled as hard as she could.

The arm came free of the body it was attached to with a wet pop, black blood spilling out in great spurts. From the shoulder Jay could see dark tendrils worming around, wriggling wildly now that they were exposed to the light of day. Disgusted, she tossed the arm away, then grabbed another and pulled again.

For the next several seconds Jay tore at the bed of bodies, tossing parts away as she ripped them away with her bare hands. At some point her gauntleted fingers clanked against something solid and metallic and she realized that she’d found her war hammer that she’d lost track of when she’d been tossed into the air. Pulling it free from the mass of blood and gore, she started to blindly slam the hammer down repeatedly into the back of the demon, pulping the wet flesh before her into a black paste.

Jay suddenly tilted wildly to her left, rolling across the squirming bodies as she fell off of the wailing demon’s back. Jadis found both her Jay self free and clear of the grasping hands as she hit the ground as well as her Dys self uncovered from the demon’s body as it lifted off of her. Wasting no time, Dys immediately struggled to her feet, converging with Jay who was also rolling onto her knees.

The demon was retreating. At a glance Jadis could see that several of the soldiers had been badly injured, their forms lying in crumpled heaps scattered across the ground. Thea was among them, lying dazed on her back several yards away from where Jadis had last seen her, but she was moving so she had to assume the shieldsworn was in no immediate danger. The demon, however, was in terrible condition. Rear left hand severed, jaw hanging loose, multiple arrows and bolts sticking out of its neck and body, plus the signs of explosion and lightning damage on its front right arm and side. Then there was its back. The abomination’s possessed riders were torn to shreds, most of them crushed and broken. A large patch of black gore oozed a continuous stream of tar-like ichor from a point just off-center of its back, the bodies surrounding it looking the worst hit. Those that could were still screeching obscenities as loudly as they could, but the sounds were greatly reduced since so many had been destroyed.

The demon stumbled away, its huge body still faster than something so large should be but moving at a slower pace than before. Its missing hand hindered it as the demon tried to dodge away, avoiding more attacks from Kerr, Bridget, Aila, and Willa. Jadis was surprised to see the captain in the fore, her scavenged blade slick with black blood as she sliced at the demon’s neck, cutting deep into the thick flesh.

With a gurgling rumble, the demon threw a backhand at Willa that she managed to turn into a glancing blow. She was still sent spinning away, the force of the attack knocking her back several feet, but her quick dodge saved her from what Jadis knew was the demon’s immense strength. The screaming monster didn’t follow up on its attack, though. Instead, the demon scrambled back and away, trying to put distance between it and the others, perhaps even trying to flee.

“Not a fucking chance!”

All three of Jadis shouted as they converged on the retreating demon. Jay ran directly at the awful creature, her speed amplified by Knight’s Daring Charge. She slammed her massive hammer into the demon’s side with enough force to crush a boulder. The screeching demon’s body rocked off balance to one side, the sound of breaking bones distinctly audible over the cries of its stolen bodies. Dys moved to follow up the attack with her axe, but before she could land her blow, the demon once more did something unexpected.

It rolled over.

Using the force of Jay’s blow to its advantage, the demon rolled like a barrel, flipping over and away from Jay and Dys with surprising speed. The bodies on its back were utterly crushed by the maneuver, almost all screams silenced in an instant, but the demon kept moving. Even before its roll was finished it was moving, its large hands digging into the dirt as it clawed its way forward in a rapid lunge. Except, the demon didn’t try to run away. Instead, it ran up.

Its many clawed fingers dug into the bark of one of the massive pine trees as the demon rapidly scaled the wide trunk. In a matter of seconds it was forty or fifty feet up in the air, showing no signs of stopping.

Jadis didn’t know if this was an attempt to flee or the setup to some other form of attack. She frankly didn’t care. Either way, the demon couldn’t be allowed to live any longer. The foul thing was too dangerous and too vile for its existence to continue.

Syd ripped her lance from the ground where she had stuck it earlier in the fight and turned to face up at the demon climbing the tree. Her eyes still stung and she could barely see, but the vision from her other bodies helped guide her. Using it like a javelin, Syd hurled her lance with all the force she had within her, trusting on her boosted Dexterity stat to guide her where her otherwise terrible aim left her lacking.

The demon’s movement upward was abruptly halted as Syd’s lance pierced the oozing black hole in its back, burying itself into the flesh past the point where it could even be seen. The demon still moved, but it struggled as though something had caught hold of it. It took Jadis only a moment to realize that her lance had pinned the demon to the trunk, holding it in place for at least a brief moment.

“Aila!” Jay shouted as she stepped closer to the tree.

“On it,” Aila gasped as she tossed away the empty metal canteen she’d had pressed to her lips.

In rapid succession Aila fired three more force bolts at the gurgling demon, each one exploding with powerful effect against its body. A slurry of ripped flesh blasted away from its gory back as the explosions impacted against the demon, sending blood and worse raining down. The third bolt exploded on the demon’s left shoulder, shredding the connection. The arm flopped uselessly to the side for a moment before the demon lost its grip with its remaining limbs. With only a deep, gurgling rumbling, the massive wretch fell from the tree and crashed heavily onto the ground almost directly in front of Jay and Dys.

Without a second’s pause Jay’s hammer slammed down onto the demon’s flopping head, crushing it against the ground. Half a second later Dys’ axe cleaved through the demon’s neck, empowered by Mirror Strikes. The monstrous creature’s bisected neck flopped around for several moments as dark ichor spurted out from it, before slumping into quiet stillness.

The only sound that could be heard for the next minute was the gasping breath of the living as they stared at the horrid creature that they had just worked together to slay. Hardly anyone even moved aside from a slight shuffle of feet. Finally, Syd reached up and pulled her helmet off, squinting around as her eyes were still irritated by the demon’s blood. Blinking, she turned to look at the bedraggled gathering.

“Everyone okay?”

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