Chapter 380: The Battle of the Skull Pits

“Here they come,” Theresa whispered from the belly of the boat.

Ahead—through pines and willows—the enemy army came. Cultists—rowed like their lives depended on it—powering strange boats of bone and hide around tree trunks and through thick, sandy bogs. Each vessel carried at least ten spellcasters, some sheathed in defensive spells. There was no shortage of force shields, bows and chainmail shining over dark clothing. Other fighters gripped long spears with tips sharpened to a knife’s edge, their faces showed no trace of fear, and they were not alone.

Demons spread among them, oozing menace.

Packs of beam-shooters stood in defensive formation, while a flock of imps soared overhead. Earlier, a scouting party of the vicious little creatures had appeared in the distance, surveying the area until a barrage of arrows from Theresa, Cedric and witch-archers’ bows had knocked them from the sky before they even saw the fletching coming.

If the demon army had any concern for their missing scouts, they showed no sign. They just kept pushing forward, the tiashivas looking especially confident. Their third eyes burned with a longing for violence and Alex was plastered to the floor watching their approach, wondering if Burn-Saw was among them.

But, if the scarred demon wasn’t part of this horde, he wouldn’t be surprised, he would even be relieved. Trying to capture the tiashiva would be a distraction he couldn’t afford right now, especially since the Chosen would have questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. Burn-Saw was a future problem, a now problem was the demon’s kindred approaching with sharp axes and blades of jagged bone. Flanked by the tiashivas were selachar-like Ar-heugeni: the type of demons that had crawled from the sea and attacked the Games on Oreca’s Fall island. The creatures broke the water’s surface with powerful strokes, their faces fixed in a snarl as they scanned the swamp through yellow eyes framed by heavy lids.

Seeing the tiashivas and Ar-heugeni together brought back terrible memories that screamed for retribution. Alex would be only too glad to repay them.

Towering above them, giant mantogugons strode: mantis-like, ice creatures whose titanic claws clicked with each step they took, freezing murky water beneath their feet. They stalked through the swamp like they were on solid ground.

Alex frowned: pushing those things toward quicksand or a bog would be pointless. The liquid they stepped on froze wherever they walked, which meant his team’s advantage from the ground being so waterlogged was gone.

Claygon would have to focus his beams on them. They needed that advantage.

Among the horde stalked unfamiliar hulking, simian-bodied things with two crocodile heads, flyers with feathers of a sickly green colour, and beaks resembling venus fly traps like in Professor Salinger’s greenhouse. He recognized the dozens of beam-shooters in the boats, their weapons were aimed and ready to fire.

Sniffing the air—in the bow of each boat—was a squat demon covered in chitin with more than a dozen articulated legs; their long noses coiled and uncoiled like snakes. There was no mistaking the mana sniffers Llyworn and Rhodri had described, and they now headed straight for Baelin’s boat.

As the boat moved closer, the creatures paced in a frenzy, their focus riveted on one overwhelming source of power ahead: Claygon. Their excitement surged, expecting that a dungeon core was within reach, and they howled like hounds on the hunt, mana calling them.

The monsters had no idea they had sailed right into the trap planned for them: the witches of Crymlyn Swamp were concealed and watched the demons row past. Soon, they’d be ambushed from all sides.

Traps bearing sigils that magical command words would activate, were ready for any demon or cultist who passed too near.

Alex’s summoned allies also lay in wait: scores of water elementals at the bottom of the swamp’s murky depths waited patiently. When the fight began, they would surge from the water and fall upon the Ar-heugeni.

Everything was going according to plan.

‘But where’s the big one?’ he wondered, scrutinising the enemy ranks.

No matter where he looked, he saw no demons that even vaguely resembled the demonic leader the two cultists had described.

He chewed his lower lip.

“Oh shit,” Theresa suddenly whispered.

She was on the opposite side of the boat to Alex and Cedric, peering out from under a canvas cloth that shrouded them from enemy eyes.

“What is it?” The Chosen whispered.

“Don’t make any fast moves,” she said quietly. “But, look in my direction…they have us surrounded.”

Alex slithered to the opposite side of the boat. “Oh shit!”

Theresa was right. Movement came from the trees flanking them, and a larger force of demons was approaching, but they were further away.

“It looks like they’ve split their forces,” he whispered. “Maybe they planned on surrounding the “dungeon” and coming at it from each direction.”

“Aye,” Cedric said. “Well, we’ve got traps out there too.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have the numbers they do.” Theresa said. “Maybe we can kill as many in the front as we can, if we do it fast enough, that should buy us some time before their reinforcements can move up.”

“Aye,” Cedric said, his voice low. “If we wipe out the first wave, we got a good chance o’ takin’ care o’ the rest. S’too bloody bad Merzhin’s not here. He’s got this miracle that’d take care o’ all these pests in one go: takes ‘im a while to set it up, but I can’t see anythin’ we’re facin’ survivin’ it.”

Alex made a mental note of the Saint’s gift: if there was one Hero he’d likely have to fight one day it was the Saint, so of course he would be the one who sounded like he’d be a problem in more ways than one. But, tomorrow’s battles were for tomorrow.

Today’s needed to get started.

“Okay,” Alex said, turning back to the demonic army in front of them. “Sounds like breaking them fast is the way to go. We don’t want them lasting long enough for the rest of their army to get here and give them the advantage, so if we can take the first wave out, that gets rid of a good chunk of their force before the rest can get stuck in.”

“Aye, well I’ll show ‘em how fast a Chosen o’ Uldar can wreck shite,” Cedric said, opening up a flight potion. “Yous ready? The witches are waitin’ on us ta’ start.”

Alex and Theresa looked at each other, then nodded.

“Ready,” Theresa said, drawing her bowstring back.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Alex willed a half dozen Wizard’s Hands to yank back the canvas.

“Well,” Cedric took a deep breath.

Then his roar filled the swamp.

Alex’s Wizard’s Hands threw off the canvas as he chugged his Flight potion.

“Alright, y’shite-eatin’, bloody traitors and demon scum!” the Chosen bellowed. “Let’s goooooooooo!”

He swigged his flight potion in a single gulp.

Theresa was already up, her hands blurring across her bowstring. Arrows flew through the air like driving rain.

‘Claygon!’ Alex thought. ‘Light ‘em up! Focus on those ice demons.’

Alex’s defensive spells flared as he, Cedric, and Claygon shot from the boat and up into the air. The demons and cultists looked to the sky, roaring a challenge, while Theresa’s arrows slammed into mortal bodies. “Stay down boy,” she whispered to Brutus who Alex had covered in force armour.

A heartbeat later, a cry rose from witches concealed in the Skull Pits.

Mana surged, traps came to life.

Shrieks of pain suddenly rang out, demons and their allied cultists were met with spiked logs, trip wires, and dead falls of rocks suspended from trees high above—all hidden by illusions—then triggered in tandem, crushing boats to bone fragments and shredded hide.

Witches released arrows relentlessly, while casting deadly spells from hiding places throughout the Skull Pits. They rained acid on the enemy and awakened dormant vines and swamp plants that now writhed with life, sprouting venomous thorns. They’d lashed cultists like whips, knitting together and weaving nets between clumps of trees to trap demon boats inside smaller waterways.

Spellcasters blasted powerful wind gusts, blowing enemies into the frigid water and nearby quicksand, sucking them down. As they sank, walking trees erupted from the muck. Groaning like old oaks, they swung clubs as long as Claygon was tall, turning demon boats to rubble.

One minute, Ar-heugeni were cutting through swamp water, swimming for animated trees and witches hiding within bogs and the tree canopy; and the next, they were yelping, frantically clawing at their own skin.

Alex’s water elementals were stuck to them like leeches, burbling contentedly while draining the demons’ life fluids.

‘That’s a downpayment for Oreca’s Fall.’ Alex thought.

Laughing with abandon, Cedric dove toward demons, shouting an incantation and firing light arrows into the horde below. Many dropped, felled by his arrows, while others were grabbed by their kindred and used as living shields.

Cedric’s wild laughter echoed through the trees, sending cultists scrambling for hiding places, but before they could reach safety, he finished the incantation and a fireball launched. With a resounding boom, flame enveloped the fleeing cultists. Screams joined the Chosen’s laughter before abruptly dying.

Whoooooooom!

Meanwhile, Claygon was building his own fire.

His gems flared, ready for ice demons below.

Whoooooooosh!

Flame sheared torsos from lower halves.

Three blasts instantly rocked the swamp, sending columns of steam, boiling plant life, and melted ice monsters hissing through the air. Claygon recharged his beams while Alex tossed booby-trapped flight potions into the enemy’s ranks. Clouds of potion mist mingled with, launching cultists and demons into tree trunks, swamp water, and each other.

In moments, the number of adversaries had plummeted.

But, those remaining weren't retreating, they still kept up their fierce attack.

Beam-demons fired lances of light toward Claygon, Alex, and Cedric, the light rays shot through the sky like fireworks. Alex dodged while his golem simply took them across his body, then answered with his own beams.

Cedric flew between the rays, transformed his weapon into a halberd, a prayer to Uldar sheathed him in blazing light, then he dove among the enemy in melee range, cutting them down where they stood.

“Can’t say we really need Merzhin after all!” He called to Alex and Theresa.

‘Thank the Traveller he’s nowhere near here.’ Alex thought.

Cultists lobbed spells and arrows at the companions above, and the witches concealed in the Skull Pits. Shards of darkness, fire-rays, force bolts and blazing, rotting skulls shot at Alex, but with a Haste potion enhancing his speed, he weaved between them in an aerial dance, retaliating with more potions of Flight.

Imps and the peculiar green, bird-like demons soared toward him with snapping jaws, and long, sticky tongues flicking acidic slime, but he blocked the acid with force shield and the cleansing movements.

As Claygon blasted ice demons with his hand beams, he flew through airborne monsters, pummeling them with fists and devastating kicks. Each blow turned a demon into paste, and sent it plummeting to the swamp.

Theresa fired from the boat, striking demons trailing Alex and Cedric. All around them, the Skull Pits had become a scene of chaos and magic, as cultist and demon numbers were slashed.

Alex was pleased, taking stock of the direction things were going, when suddenly, horns trumpeted above the havoc of battle and demons began advancing from their flanks, closing on Baelin’s boat.

With the blowing of horns, came a deep bellow, erupting from the marsh at the witches’ backs.

There she was: the demon leader. The towering creature strode forward, wading through swamp water, coming toward them. In one claw, she gripped what was the biggest spear Alex had ever seen. Maybe, ‘spear’ was the wrong word: the barbed blade on its end looked like a titan’s barbed sword had been fitted onto the haft of a pole-arm. Unfriendly looking vapours drifted from the spear’s blade, and an equally unfriendly look burned in her eyes.

“Cedric!” he roared. “It’s the leader!”

The Chosen swung his halberd, splitting a giant, crocodile-headed demon in two with a single strike. “I’m on ‘er! Give the signal!”

Alex dodged through a pack of imps, then turned and fired a flare high into the sky.

When its ascent began to slow, it abruptly ruptured, shedding a scarlet light that could be seen from miles away.

###

A mile and a half away, Hart watched the south from a treetop, while Angharad and a team of thirty witches waited in boats below.

Drestra hid at the base of the tree.

The Sage tapped the trunk with growing impatience.

“Anything yet?” she hissed at the Champion.

“No, And that’s the twentieth time you’ve as—Wait.”

Hart grinned, stepping out of the canopy, floating down with the aid of Drestra’s flight spell.

“Flare’s up,” he whispered. “The enemy’s fully stuck in. They can’t back out now.”

“Then we go to work,” Angharad said.

“Yes, it’s our turn,” Drestra murmured.

She cast her warming spell and the witches slipped into the waters of Crymlyn Swamp with the Heroes. A few stayed back, guarding the vessels while the rescue team quietly waded away, swimming through the murky water toward the unsuspecting enemy camp.