I pulled the sword, slashing with one hand, hacking with the other. The demon weapons were light, responsive and hungry for blood.
I saw Bathin throw himself forward, chopping off one of his giant lizard father’s giant lizard toes.
Then all I could see were too many disfigured heads, too many arms, some with grotesque bodies attached, all with weapons, stabbing, tearing, slashing.
I used the axe, the sword, smashing flesh and bone and fur, but I was tired. Several small cuts on my arms and legs stung, and a fleeting memory of demon scratches going toxic flashed through my mind.
A demon that looked like a cross between a crocodile and a worm dashed behind me and opened its huge mouth. It swallowed my backpack.
The backpack that was strapped on my back.
I yelled, and barely managed to slide my arms through the straps before being swallowed with it. I lost hold of the axe, and it disappeared into the dead demon mob.
Something grabbed my ankles, pulled. The sword was ripped from my hand.
I went down again, into soil that had gone rotten and soft as it disgorged more and more dead demons up through the dirt.
I pulled my knives and aimed for heads and throats.
Xtelle yelled: “Stab, stage right! Stab, stage left! Stab! Who’s the livestock, no-lines now?” as she impaled Mithra over and over again, Avnas bashing him like a bloody drum at her side.
The last glimpse I had of Jean, was her sitting, back to a fountain, Hogan unconscious and bleeding in her lap as she shot monster after monster. Myra was wielding a short sword she’d pulled from one of the dead. She ran toward Jean, only to go down in the sea of hands.
Ryder stumbled toward me, bleeding and furious as he tried to fight his way free of the demons surrounding him, his only weapon a knife in his hand.
Then there was Rossi.
A sudden hit of cold air blasted the demons away from me and the vampire stood above me, magnificent in his vengeance, blood dripping from his saber and talons. “Up!” he yelled, lifting me off the ground away from the hands that clawed and tore. “Fly!”
He locked his arms under mine, and we were up, so high, so fast, I felt like I was falling instead of rising. He landed us on the roof of the temple under which the thrones lay broken and bloody.
“I have to get the others,” Rossi said. “Stay here.”
He was gone so fast, I braced my hands under me to keep from over balancing and falling off the roof.
From here I could see Goap and Patrick locked in battle, their weapons glowing with so much power I couldn’t even make out the shape of them.
From here I could see Myra suddenly fly upward and disappear toward the jungle in an eye blink.
From here I could see Hogan, then Jean, then Ryder do the same.
From here I could see the king of hell, still a massive lizard, had pinned Bathin on his back, one giant claw planted in the middle of Bathin’s chest. Bathin had a rock in his hand but that was all.
The Brute of All Evil’s mouths merged into one maw that emitted a horrific roar.
I slapped my hands over my ears and screamed to try and break the pressure on my eardrums.
Then the demon that looked like a crocodile worm, the demon that had eaten my backpack, exploded.
In the scope of shit currently going wrong, it wasn’t that big of a thing.
But Crow’s laughter in my mind was triumphant.This is gonna be so fucking good!
Standing there, on the battlefield, in the middle of the recently exploded crocodile worm, covered in guts and gore, was a dragon-pig.
A very angry dragon-pig.
It snorted and shook off the remains of my backpack.
