Chapter 486: Mud and Blood

“Block off the buildings on the west side, too! Fill the gaps!”

Jay’s shouts echoed over the clomp of boots and clatter of armor and shields as the imperial soldiers moved to get into position. One hundred and fifty men had followed Jadis and her team to the intersection, led by the three captains the commander of the gates had sent after her. The mass of soldiers had divided their numbers up on her command, stretching out across the main road and the crossroad, blocking off the south and west side of the intersection. Those who had already been on location when Syd had arrived had taken up position inside of the four-story building, blocking off all entrances to the first floor. The furniture that had been used to block off the street had instead been hastily repurposed to fill in the doors and windows of the other buildings on either side of the south street, to help make sure the Demons didn’t find ways of circling around the soldiers. Jadis’s shouts were to make sure the same was done for the west street, since she didn’t want the Demons to get around that side, either.

An intermittent stream of wounded soldiers was still coming from the north and east, however, those numbers were quickly falling off. With her Dys self standing on the top of the tall building, she could see why. The soldiers who had been defending the streets around the breach had pulled back to stronger positions. Those who had been at the dock gates had been forced to the western side of the barricades, while those on the far side of the giant wyrm had taken up positions in the east. While it looked like they were doing a good job of blocking off the horde from advancing in either direction, that left the south, where Jadis’ intersection was, as the only other direction the Demons could go.

“Here they come,” Kerr said as she set another quiver down by her feet for easy access. “Better grab those turtles over there or they aren’t going to make it.”

“I’m on it,” Dys said, one foot on top of the roof ledge.

Indeed, her Syd self was already running over to the four soldiers who were straggling behind the rest of the retreating city defenders. They were running from the east, so they were probably one of the many who had been manning smaller posts when the breach happened and were unable to connect with the fortified position further east of the intersection. A wave of Demons was running behind them, which meant the true shit was about to hit the fan.

“We aren’t planning on just holding this spot, are we?” Kerr asked after loosing an arrow and striking down one of the many mire hounds in a single shot. “We’ve got to do something about that fucking monstre géant sticking its head through the wall.”

“I know,” Dys replied. “And we aren’t. We’re just thinning their numbers and giving the army time to get into better position. Trust me, that big fucker is mine.”

“Not if I kill it first,” Kerr grinned at her before firing another arrow.

“First Noll, now you?” Dys grinned back. “How many people am I going to have to compete against to kill a giant slug?”

The plan really was simple. While the horde of Demons was massive, it wasn’t infinite. Jadis would have preferred to tackle the gigantic wyrm head on, however, she knew that if she did rush right at it, she’d be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, never mind the power of the colossal Demon and any other dangerous foes that could be a part of the masses arrayed against the city. So, she was going to force the Demons to attack her and those who stood beside her at the intersection, where their numbers wouldn’t be as effective. They would cull the horde, and once it was diminished, they would push forward so she could go after the big guy.

Of course, that plan relied on the idea that the demonic monster wyrm that had to be a mile or two long didn’t come looking for them. Since the Demon hadn’t moved since it had stuck its face through the wall, she assumed that it probably wasn’t going to keep pushing into the city. It seemed to be content to act as a bridge for its lesser sisters, though from the occasional flash of magic, she could see that the attempts of the army to dislodge the creature were being met with heavy, and violent, resistance.

As Syd ran up to the tall building, four soldiers squeezed under her arms, Dys dropped down to land beside her. With axe in hand, she moved forward to the eastern edge of the intersection, where Jay was already heading. While the wall of soldiers across the south and west sides of the square were meant to stop any Demons from progressing further into the city, Jadis wasn’t going to be staying behind the shield wall. She did her best work when she had room to move, and her weapon swings were wide.

“Hold the line in here,” Syd told the four soldiers as she pushed them into the building. “Or go wherever the goat or the redhead tells you to! Just don’t let the Demons past these walls!”

It wasn’t just the random assortment of soldiers who had been separated from their units defending the first floor. Almost all of Jadis’ companions were inside the building as well. Tegwyn, Terrance, Nevan, Orla, Humbert, and Villum were all posted in the left and right front of the shop, as were Bridget and Meli towards the middle. Eir and Cora were also on the first floor, though they were behind the line of combatants, providing healing to the injured. Aila, Sabina, and Sorcha were on the second floor, where they would have a good view of the intersection and could provide ranged support. Alex was with them, in part to make sure none of the soldiers mistook her for an enemy, and also to serve as protection to the vulnerable backline in case anything managed to get past Jadis. Aside from Kerr, the only other one of Jadis’ companions who had followed her to the intersection who was outside of the building was Thea. The former soldier had taken several of the city defenders under her command and positioned herself at the southside wall of the tall building. Her diagonally oriented line was intended to keep a clear access way for injured soldiers to get inside of the building through one of the large side windows. An identical line of soldiers had been set up on the opposite side of the building front for the western shield wall soldiers, though they didn’t have the benefit of Thea’s overpowered defenses. Instead, Nevan and Orla were positioned on that side and would be keeping a close eye on those soldiers.

Jadis had to mentally correct herself on one point. There was one other person who was outside of the building, though her designation as companion was tenuous at that moment.

Maeve had separated from the group after they had arrived at the intersection. Jadis had lost track of the Fetch completely for a while since she was focused on getting everyone into position and the defenses ready in mere minutes. When she realized that she had no idea where the woman had gone, she had thought that Maeve may have fled. She wasn’t going to call the woman a coward, but as far as she could tell so far, the troublemaking avatar didn’t have combat classes. A frontline battle wasn’t the place for someone specializing in spy craft. Then she had spotted the Fetch standing on the rooftop of the building in the northwest corner of the intersection. She didn’t look like anyone Jadis knew anymore, as her face and body looked like a blonde human woman with an upturned nose. There was no doubt to her identity, though, as she had on the same torn robes that mimicked what Eir wore.

Jadis wasn’t sure what Maeve planned on doing up there, but she wasn’t going concern herself with the woman at the moment. As long as she was out of the way, that was fine. She had bigger things to worry about. She would let the Fetch do her thing for the time being. Jadis would be having a long and very intense conversation with Maeve later, presuming they all lived through the night. That conversation could wait, though. Jadis had shit to kill.

A wave of mire hounds in numbers too great to count had reached Jay and Dys.

Jay waded into the mass of mud monsters swinging her hammer low enough to act as a golf club. There was no need for finesse, or to even aim, really. There were so many of the vicious dog-taurs that she couldn’t help but hit two of the fuckers with her first attack. The crack of sticks, dirt, and Demon breaking on the steel of her hammer resounded in the night air as the bodies of the unfortunate pair were sent hurtling dozens of yards back down the road they had come from. Jay followed up her first swing by moving with the momentum and bringing her weapon around in a low sweep on her opposite side, catching three more of the Demons in a blow that, if not immediately lethal, would not leave the mire hounds in any kind of condition to attack anyone, if they were ever able to peel themselves off the wall of a building fifty feet down the street.

She didn’t bother taking any defensive measures beyond keeping her feet moving. The mire hounds were simply too small and too weak to cause her any damage, at least as long as she didn’t let them dog pile her. Jay simply put all of her effort into attacking the enemy and relied on her armor and high fortitude to keep her hide intact.

Dys took a slightly different approach to how Jadis faced the demonic onslaught. Rather than staying in mostly one spot, letting the dark wave crash against her like she was some immutable rock, Dys hacked at the Demons as she spun around her other self like a whirling dervish. She never stopped moving as she pushed her way through the horde, crushing mire hounds underfoot as much as she chopped them up with her battleaxe. Her movements were always directed towards the highest concentration of Demons, her goal to cut down the bigger groups before they could get past her.

No matter how many Jadis’ selves killed, however, there were still Demons who slipped by. Dozens rushed past her two bodies, intent on bringing death and destruction to as many living beings as they could. Their own lives were inconsequential. The fanatical Demons would stop at nothing to fulfill their twisted purpose. If that meant throwing themselves against a shield wall of prepared soldiers, heedless of the danger to themselves, that was what they would do. And that was what they did.

The mire hounds tore into the wall of soldiers, their stone claws scraping against the sturdy steel shields of the men and women who stood strong against them. As the soldiers in the front of the line took the brunt of the attacks, the second line behind them struck at the enemy with their long spears. The defenders worked with ruthless efficiency, striking at the Demons and blocking their attacks with a proficient uniformity that spoke of more than just system-enhanced skill, but years of practice and training. These were not new recruits who would falter under the pressure of an overwhelming demonic force, but experienced soldiers who knew how to handle not just the enemy, but themselves.

Cracks still appeared on the surface of the defenses the soldiers presented. They didn’t have enough men to form a third layer to their shield wall. Each man that was wounded on the front line and forced to back out was replaced by the man behind him, but that weakened the overall offensive capability of the spearmen on the second layer. Wounded ran to the central area where they received fast healing from Eir and a regen effect from Cora, and those who could get back into the fight did so as quickly as they could. And yet every soldier who came off the line created vulnerabilities in their overall defenses, thus causing more soldiers to be injured by demonic claws, thus driving them ever deeper into a fatal spiral. On their own, it was doubtful the soldiers would last more than a few minutes under the tireless press of the mire hounds attacking them.

 Fortunately for them, they were not alone.

Syd slashed through the backs of the Demons who were facing the wall of soldiers. Her blade cut through their strange, muck and blood bodies from behind, providing the shield wall with breathing room. Just like her Dys self, Syd kept moving, avoiding getting bogged down in one spot for too long and focusing her attention on the mire hounds who attacked the shield wall. At first, she ran back and forth across the square intersection, but as more and more of the Demons filled the open space, she found it easier to leap from one side to another as wherever she landed, she would inevitably crush a mud monster underfoot.

As Syd swept several Demons clear of the shield walls, she took moments to take stock of the corner building where her companions were congregated. While she kept a constant eye on the location that held her lovers, Jadis found that she didn’t need to worry about defending the structure or those who were near it. The fortified position had become a grindhouse, where any Demon who came near it was utterly eviscerated by a multitude of attacks, some conventional, others not.

Two mire hounds charged the west side of the building, trampling over their dying kin in their haste to get to their perceived prey. Before they came within ten feet of the open wall-length display window, a whip flashed out and sliced the head off of the rightmost Demon. As the headless monstrosity tumbled to the muck-coated ground, its twin continued its reckless, headlong rush. As it came to the edge of the wall, a gnome flashed out at the Demon and pierced its eye with the sharp point of his rapier. In the next instant, the gnome fell back, avoiding the swiping claws of the dying mire hound before it collapsed in a heap.

Nevan and Orla were racking up a pile of bodies on their side of the wall, a feat nearly matched by the rest of her companions in their own spots along the defensive perimeter. While those who were lower CLR like Villum, or without primary combat classes like Terrance and Humbert, couldn’t kill the mire hounds as quickly or easily as the two experienced mercenaries, they worked well enough together to make their own piles of defeated foes. Nothing needed to be said about the capabilities of Thea, Bridget and Tegwyn, though Jadis was glad to see that all of her companions were doing a good job of covering each other whenever they were met with a situation they couldn’t handle.

When Bridget knocked back one Demon that had managed to dig its claws into Tegwyn’s shoulder, a huge black tentacle snapped down on the Demon and crushed its back with one blow. A second tentacle wrapped around the head of another mire hound that was harassing Villum and tossed the miserable creature away from the building and into the middle of the intersection where it collided with more enemies.

“Keep them safe!” Syd briefly raised her blade in salute to Alex.

Her demonic lover was hanging partially out of a second story window, her large tentacles easily reaching far enough to attack the enemy Demons with their great length. She didn’t shout any words back, but her smaller tentacles moved in a way that Jadis knew meant both an acknowledgement, and a sign of her love and affection.

The grind against the writhing mass of mire hounds continued for a timeless few minutes that felt like both hours and seconds to Jadis. Her focus on the battle was a burning thrill that occupied her thoughts and kept her busy. She had no idea how many Demons she killed in that short time, but the number felt impossible. And yet more mire hounds continued to pour down the street and into the intersection. It was only after those few minutes of constant fighting and slaying of Demons that Jadis realized a hidden threat that the muck-made abominations possessed.

The intersection was becoming choked with the bodies of the dead Demons. Their stick and mud corpses covered the stone road completely, turning the ground underfoot into a rancid sludge of Demon blood and the foul muck that made up their unnatural forms. Not only was it making it a challenge to find firm footing, but the piles of dead mire hounds were growing so high that they were being used as ramps by the hordes of freshly arriving Demons to climb up and over, where they would attack the soldiers from a higher position. The shield walls were slowly being pushed out of shape, with the south side wall suffering the worst as the center of the line bowed inwards from the constant assault and growing piles of bodies. Soon, the mounds of corpses would be so high that the Demons would be able to climb up and leap over the shield wall to get at them from behind.

There was a further complication to the mire hounds that Jadis was catching onto as well. She guessed that the Demons had made their shell bodies out of mud and sticks because both resources were cheap and plentiful. But that wasn’t the only reason. The muck let out a noxious stench that polluted the air. It was so foul that Jadis’ eyes watered constantly and there were times that she almost had to stop fighting so she could take a moment to puke. She managed to hold the impulse off, but the more dead mire hounds filled the area, the worse the stench got. Jadis didn’t notice any damaging effect to the dizzying stench, but that might have just been due to her high Fortitude and Resilience. It was entire possible the air was literally being turned toxic by the fumes the dead Demons were emitting, which would be slowly eating away at the health of everyone nearby.

As bad as the conditions at the intersection were getting, there was some hope of relief. When Syd glanced up the southward road that led to the gate and the second tier of the city, she saw more imperial soldiers coming their way. A whole company of reinforcements had been gathered together, probably a mix of those who had been healed enough to get back into the fighting and were coming to help. Syd counted at least another hundred soldiers, as well as several individuals who looked like military mages, considering the staves they wielded.

A second, smaller company of twenty or twenty-five fighters were moving behind the main body of soldiers. They weren’t imperial soldiers, since they didn’t have the uniform, and instead looked like mercenaries going by their rougher black and brown uniforms. They were all wielding bows and, when they got closer, Syd could see that they were all therions as well. Before the soldiers reached the shield wall, the archers split off and began scaling the east-side buildings. They were surprisingly quick and agile, getting up onto the roofs with ease. Once there, they moved into position on the southeast corner building overlooking the intersection and began a relentless rain of arrows down onto the river of Demons filling the street below.

The wave of reinforcements seemed to bolster the spirits of the soldiers as they let out battle cries and redoubled their efforts against the invading Demons. Jadis was happy to see them, too, since the more soldiers who came to fortify the intersection, the closer she got to the point where she could go after the giant Demon sticking its ugly face through the city’s northern wall.

That time hadn’t come just yet, though, as the demonic horde was far from depleted. If anything, Jadis could see that things were about to get a lot tougher, as the mire hounds were only cannon fodder, sent in to weaken the defenders first. From the east street, more Demons of different sorts were starting to appear, and more still were coming from the road north. Dead heads and scythe wights were among their numbers, but so too were creatures Jadis had never seen before. Monstrosities that lumbered along like giants among their smaller kin, as well as slippery, thin things that snaked along through the shadows that were barely visible.

Whatever the new Demons were, Jadis knew that she was in for a fight.

She also knew, without doubt, that she would win.

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