Chapter 29: Dying the Cool Way

Chapter 29: Dying the Cool Way

Dys was having trouble running. The pain was slightly dulled by the adrenaline flooding her veins, but Jadis could still feel the sharp pull in Dys’ left side from where the surprise bone thief’s antlers had pierced her. Sprinting full tilt, even the short distance to the log cabin barracks was agonizing.

The bone behemoth was already crossing the distance, following behind Jay and Dys as they dodged behind the wooden building, giving Jadis only moments to consider what she should do. Brain stalling, Jadis had both of her selves scan her surroundings, looking for any potential advantage she could wring out of the bad situation.

They were at the edge of the compound, on the top of a hill. The road was to their right, following a gentle curve to mitigate the steepness of the slope. The hillside was covered in small trees, mostly saplings shorter than she was, but was a dense enough thicket that trying to run through it might slow her down. At the base of the hill was the western edge of the village proper with its stone buildings, and slightly beyond that was D’s temple with it’s stone tower.

None of the details surrounding her seemed in any way helpful. As Jadis started moving both Jay and Dys south, thinking to run for the road and try to lead the huge demon away from the lake filled with bones, she spotted the stacked pile of large logs between her and the top of the road.

Jadis didn’t waste time or breath with words. Jay and Dys were her, no explanation of plans was needed.

Leaping forward, Jay ran out from behind the cabin as the behemoth was putting on of its huge bony hands on the edge of the roof.

“Eat my ass you Halloween decoration reject!” Jay shouted as she ran past the abomination, heading for the log pile.

At the same time, Dys fell back through one of the log cabin windows, crouching low and staying silent to avoid drawing attention. With one hand pressed against the bleeding holes in her side, Jadis hoped she could find something to staunch the wounds soon before Dys suffered from the effects of blood loss.

Running full tilt towards the large stack of logs, Jay looked over her shoulder to see the behemoth chasing right behind her. It moved slowly, at least it seemed to, but accounting for its size, each forward step of the demon was moving it forward dozens of feet at a time. Its apparently sluggish movements were effectively fast when put into context.

Reaching the logs, Jay double checked what held them in place with a quick glance. Each log was as long as the behemoth’s body, and thicker around than Jadis could reach with one set of arms. They were piled high, stacked on each other tall enough to reach an arm’s length over Jay’s head. On either side of the pile, four large wooden stakes had been stuck into the ground, holding the logs in place.

Seeing that things were as she remembered with the log pile, Jay changed trajectory and started running east, down the slope of the hill. She had to time the turn right, making sure to angle the bone behemoth so it would follow behind her as well as put the log pile to its back.

Dys, hiding in the cabin, looked out the open door of the building just in time to see the huge demon winding up its attack.

With Dys’ sight to guide the timing, Jay dropped into a slide like a baseball player, wincing at the rough ground scraping the backs of her thighs. The minor pain was instantly forgotten as a whoosh of air passed over Jay’s head, the huge bone mace at the end of the behemoth’s tail missing her by inches as it swept through the trees and saplings without slowing in the slightest.

“Shit biscuits!” Jadis couldn’t help but curse as she rolled Jay to her feet, continuing her breakneck sprint down the hill. She had to put more distance between her and the giant demon.

Seeing the behemoth commit to the chase, lumbering down the slope after Jay, Dys moved out of the cabin and made a beeline for the logs, trying to move as quietly as she could despite her wounds making her limp. As she neared the logs, she heard a familiar clattering sound approach from her right, in the direction of the pond.

Another bone thief was finishing up adding more bones to its body, two large arms ending in clubs making up the bulk of its form. It turned towards her, eyeless skulls seeing her as she rushed across the open space.

Jadis couldn’t waste the time to press the attack on the reeling bone thief. The more time passed, the more likely the behemoth was to finally land an attack on Jay and just one hit from a creature of that size would be devastating.

Swinging around, Dys swept her maul in a low swing that took out the final post.

At the same time, the now one-armed bone demon recovered its footing and swung for Dys, club arm hitting her back again and sending her flopping forward onto the ground.

The ground just beyond the path of the now collapsing log pile, as it turned out.

Pulling her legs out of the way just in time, the towering stack of logs, each one likely weighing thousands of pounds, fell on top of the bone thief, crunching it to dust as the pile rolled down the hill, heading straight for the back of the behemoth.

Knowing what was coming, Jadis sprinted away from the bone behemoth, trying to get out of the way before the avalanche of wood reached them both. Before she could take even a few steps away, though, the tail of the colossal bone thief came crashing down in front of her, missing her by inches. The spiky mass still landed directly in her path, causing Jay to trip over it in a disorienting and painful scramble of limbs. Before she could recover from her fall, the demon whipped its tail up and away, bony spikes catching into her armor and flesh, sending her cartwheeling through the air for a dozen paces where she landed hard on the dirt, something in her right knee crunching audibly with the impact.

“Fuck!” Jay screeched, voice breaking with the pain.

Rolling over onto her back, she stared up at the behemoth as it loomed above her, huge hand raised high overhead, poised to slap down on top of her prone form and swat her like a fly.

Jadis watched with morbid detachment as impending death hung over her head.

She grinned, a bit of blood streaking her white teeth as she lifted a middle finger at the bone behemoth.

“Eat my dick,” she growled viciously as the rolling logs collided with the behemoth, catching it completely off guard.

The huge logs rolled down the hillside, bouncing and crashing along due to the uneven ground. Some impacted the legs of the bone behemoth, knocking it off its feet, while others were launched higher, slamming into its side and bowling it over. The demon was swept away in a tide of trees, its size and weight no defense against the momentum of so many heavy logs.

Jadis watched with twin smiles as the mess of bone and wood crashed to a stop at the base of the hill, rolling into the back of a stone building which partially collapsed, creating even more destruction.

As Dys hobbled to her feet and Jay groped around for her maul to use as a crutch, her smiles faded to gaping mouths of disbelief.

The pile of wood and rubble shifted as the visible pieces of the bone behemoth shifted, trying to extricate itself from the heap of logs and stone pinning it down.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jadis shouted from both her selves in unison, running Dys down the slope to Jay as fast as she could. “Why couldn’t you just die the cool way, you piece of shit!?”