Chapter 23: Between a Bone and a Hard Place

Chapter 23: Between a Bone and a Hard Place

Dys wasn’t winning her fight.

The bone thief that had been hiding within the dark hut had too many limbs to block all effectively. For every one arm she grabbed and pried off of her, two more would latch back on, digging bony fingers into her armor or flesh. The demon battered her constantly, kicking off the walls and throwing off her balance, causing her to slip or tumble to the ground, keeping her from gaining any equilibrium.

The chaotic scramble going on inside the stone house was not helping Jay in her efforts to avoid being eviscerated by the bear-skeleton. Only seconds had passed and she’d already had a clawed paw slash left thigh and her right side because of her split concentration distracting her. Her makeshift armor was the only reason those attacks hadn’t been grievous wounds, but she knew without doubt that her leather protections would do nothing against one of the demon’s tail swings.

Dodging and backing up wasn’t tenable. Jadis couldn’t run, she couldn’t escape, and she certainly couldn't hide within the walls of her pathetically inadequate hut. Jadis needed to do what worked best for her. She needed to be bold.

Switching directions, Jay shot towards the stone hut, heading for the left front corner. Stalking right on her heels, the bone bear followed. Jay purposefully pulled ahead, hoping she’d timed everything right to get the correct distance.

In a moment, Jadis realized she had.

The demon’s giant mace of a tail came swinging at her, the powerful spin aiming for her center mass.

Jay dove forward, hitting the ground on hands and knees, scrabbling across the ground as the mass of bone crashed overhead against the stone wall of the hut. The demon had not been strong enough to crush stone with bone, the impact jarring and stopping the full rotation of the bone thief’s attack. The time it would take for the demon to reorient were precious seconds Jadis needed.Nnêw n0vel chapters are published at novelhall.com

Jay pulled herself forward, getting to her feet and running around the back of the building, taking the corners as tightly as she could. The bulky bone monstrosity was already resuming its chase but couldn’t turn with the same speed she could while running. Before the demon had fully gotten around back of the hut, Jay was already turning around the front, heading for the door.

Dys, still grappling with the many-limbed demon, pushed to have the attacker with its back to the door. If she could angle it right, she should be able to hold it in place long enough for Jay to give one or two good strikes to its core from behind.

The demon was not cooperative. It flailed wildly, causing both to spin and, by the time Jay got to the door, Dys’ back was squarely in the frame.

Jadis didn’t waste time and adjusted her plans. She could hear the other demon already rounding the side of the building.

Dys fell backwards, knocking the back of her head against the top of the door frame but otherwise falling back out into the open air of the night, right at Jay’s feet. With the moonlight shining down, Jay could see exactly what Dys had been grappling with.

The bone thief was like a six-legged spider, the limbs radiating out around a single thick mass. Several skulls were attached to two opposite ends of the round body, their animalistic jaws snaping and clicking together uselessly since they had no necks to angle them into position to bite.

Turning away from Dys’ struggle, Jay faced the right corner of the hut in time to see the huge skeletal bear come around the edge in a mad rush of deadly bones. Her eyes met empty sockets as the two locked gazes for a brief second.

“How the fuck are you running like a fat man when you’re nothing but bone?” Jay snarled at the demon, brandishing her club.

Taking the bait, the demon spun. Its long tail tipped with a massive mace hurtled through the air at Jay, wind whistling with the strength and speed of the attack.

Jay dove forward, getting under the swing just as Dys pushed up with all her strength, lifting the spider-skeleton high enough to be in the direct ark of the tail.

Jadis honestly wanted to lay both her bodies down right then and there, close her eyes and go to sleep for a solid week. The day had been long and exhausting, this last fight sapping away the last dregs of her energy. She couldn’t leave things as they were, though. At a minimum she needed to get her supplies inside and the stinking demon corpses away from the house.

Looking at the splattered demon goo all over the door frame, though, Jadis realized there wasn’t going to be any way for her to clean that mess up. She’d have to live with the smell for the night.

Bones tossed away into the forest and supplies brought inside, Jay prepared some food as best she could in the dark while Dys laid down on the fur rug on the floor of the too-small bedroom. Between the two, Dys had gotten the worst of the injuries and deserved a rest.

Jadis knew that hardtack wasn’t meant to be eaten dry, so she crushed a few of the biscuits up into a jar half-full of water, letting the broken bits soak and soften. She also added a generous amount of honey to the mixture, forced to stir the gooey slop with her fingers since she didn’t have a spoon.

Stirring the thick slurry while she could still smell the dead demon gunk stinking up the front of the house did not do great things for Jadis’ appetite.

Jadis suppressed the shivers of revulsion and forced herself to bring the jar to Jay’s lips and take a mouthful. The texture was awful, like oatmeal gone wrong, but the taste was no different from eating a bland cracker slathered in honey. Taking another gulp, Jay passed the Jar to Dys, sharing the utilitarian meal between them. Most any other food would have been better, but Jadis could make do with the hardtack and honey.

“What a day,” Jay sighed, leaning against the wall while Dys propped herself up with her head in Jay’s lap once their meager dinner was finished.

“Mirrored Strikes is something else, though, isn’t it?” Dys said, reaching out and grabbing the club she’d used to crush the demon’s shoulder. “I mean, look at this.”

Even in the dark Jadis could see that the stone head of the club had been broken, a large chunk having been chipped off the front where it had impacted the demon’s bones.

“Another item for our growing list of things to do,” Jay murmured, running a hand through Dys’ hair. “We need to make some new clubs, sturdier ones than these. Can’t have our weapons breaking in the middle of a fight.”

“Hey, we might get lucky and find some more weapons. Like that hatchet, only our size and actually useful for combat.”

“Maybe,” Jay leaned her head back against the wall. “More likely it’ll be dwarf sized, if we find anything.”

“Well, let’s add searching that cave to the list. A miner’s sledgehammer would probably do just as good if not better than these,” Dys wiggled the stone club in her hand for emphasis before putting it down.

“So, we need to make or get new weapons, search a probably dangerous cave, move our base to somewhere better than this house—”

“Somewhere with a lock,” Jay interrupted.

“Yeah, somewhere we can lock up when we aren’t in it. Oh, and also figure out how to catch fish. That everything?”

“Other than kill a shit ton of bone thieves and level up? Yeah, that’s about it.”

“So where do we start?” Dys asked, looking up at Jay.

“I dunno. But we’ll figure something out in the morning.”