Clayton Emery - Sword Play

But the first lemure he'd killed had heaved itself up to its hands and knees, shrugged off its fallen comrades, and now stood upright again. The yellow pus had run off its skull; Sunbright could still see a white line from the wound. And the lemure was shorter, having used its own body to rebuild. But it attacked anew. So did another that lacked an arm, but was growing a new one.

And more were coming. The cavern was carpeted in yellow as lemures poured from holes in the ground, caves, or thin air, summoned by the howling pit fiend above the lava pit. Erinyes took to the air to avoid the pustular flood, and skeletal warriors and imps clattered out of the way or were trodden under.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lemures deluged Sunbright, and none could be killed. His heart almost failed within him. "Staff of Garagos! We'll never stop these things!"

Surprisingly, a voice sounded by his ear. "Correct! They can regenerate indefinitely! Only a blessed blade can destroy them!"

It was Candlemas, who'd crooked first and fourth fingers to wield some spell from just behind the warrior's protection.

Sunbright stabbed, hacked, stabbed again. "You enchanted my blade! That day, by the river, with magic potion!"

"That was a lie! You needed confidence!"

Sunbright swung hard enough to almost tag Candlemas. "I need to kill you when we get out of here!"

"I'd be glad to die anywhere outside the Nine Hells!" retorted the mage. Then he hollered, "Duck!"

Hollering "Volhm!" the mage slapped his finger-extended hands together.

Sunbright scooched low, but still a clap of thunder almost bowled him into the mass of lemures pressing him. He was blinded as a lightning bolt scorched the air.

Like the breath of a god, a hole appeared in the packed ranks of fiends. Scores of shuffling, dripping lemures were obliterated, blown to fragments and steam by the fearsome bolt. Yellow glop sprayed in the air and fell like hot rain. The ground itself was charred and streaked, and the acidic stink of burned, undead flesh hit the humans and half-elf like a hammer across the nose. Greenwillow and Sunbright gagged, and even the protected mages covered their faces. The air, already thick with yellow smoke, grew foul enough to cut. Stunned, the nearest lemures paused in their attack. But the hordes behind merely tramped on, climbing over their insensate fellows. More pus was crushed from yellow bodies, until it ran in rivers and spilled into the lava pit, where it hissed and steamed and stank abominably.

In the brief pause before the next wave, Sunbright felt a cool hand on his scraped arm. Sysquemalyn pushed alongside him, hair bedraggled, eyes red, nose running. Over the thud of feet and the wailing of the pit fiend, she yelled, "Keep them back! You too, 'Mas, and you, elf! I think I can gate us out of here!"

"Why should we trust you?" retorted Sunbright. The wave of lemures was only a dozen feet away, and he frowned as he inspected his befouled blade's edge. It was dull from hacking through flesh and not-flesh. "You've done nothing but lie from the start!"

"That's the beauty of a crisis! You have no choice!" Despite her begrimed state, Sysquemalyn chuckled, delighting in conflict. Sunbright couldn't reconcile her with the soul-dead loser whose head he'd almost removed. She meant to say more, but suddenly pushed him forward. "Stop them!"

The hordes of lemures faded from Sunbright's vision as he beheld a new menace urged on by the screaming pit fiend. Bounding from the very feet of the monster came four or five imps or… Words failed the barbarian. They looked like armored knights, if the armor were made of dried leather, and were studded with tall spiral horns, high arching bat wings, and spikes along their arms and legs. The wings obviously were vestigial, for the fiends jumped in great bounds like manic grasshoppers. Where they landed they crushed lemures by the handful, so yellow gore marked their taloned feet.

All five had been thrown into the battle against the sole living beings in the chamber. Sunbright had time only to shout, "Greenwillow, back to back!" before they were involved in the fight of their lives.

The lemures never fell back, and more were crushed as the imps crashed upon them almost at Sunbright's feet. Two attacked immediately.

The monsters used no finesse, just brute strength in a headlong charge. Huge brown leather hands studded on the back with bony spikes opened to tear off the barbarian's head. Resisting the urge to fall back, Sunbright countered with an equally brutal assault. He'd wrapped both hands around Harvester's haft and tucked it under his right armpit. Now he lunged, straight and true, praying his hobnails didn't slip in the sea of yellow ooze upon which they battled.

Up close, the imp's face was a blank mask of leather stippled with spikes no longer than a fingernail. The eyes were blank holes, and when it opened its mouth, the black cavity showed nothing, as if the head were hollow. Sunbright intended to find out. Crowding the monster, he felt the horny hands brush his topknot and clasp shut. But he'd struck.

Harvester's widened point jammed into the beast's gaping mouth, struck leather on the far side, and split it. Cranking the pommel, grunting with the effort, the barbarian felt the hook tear as he yanked back toward his gut. Harvester's barb jerked loose, snagging on the creature's lower jaw where a lip would have been.

By now, Sunbright was taking punishment from a score of spikes. One leather-clad arm raked across his shoulder, splitting skin with jagged spikes like the teeth of a giant garfish. The other arm slammed him alongside the neck, and he had to hoick his head to the left to keep his windpipe from being shredded.

But at the same time, he twisted Harvester again and pushed, straining sideways. With the hook in the jaw acting as anchor, he scored a deep gash from the imp's slash of a mouth halfway around its neck. With a heave, he sliced its head half off.

Barging in so close he felt white bone spikes ping his chest, the barbarian shoved to drive his sword down the thing's throat, then levered the opposite way.

Like gutting a deer, he peeled the imp's head off.

Only a flap of leathery skin remained at one side of the neck, and the heavy horned head toppled down behind its shoulder. A dry stink like shorn metal welled up from within the fiend, and Sunbright wondered if that represented its spirit, if beings here had them.

Headless, blinded, the imp staggered, stepped back, piled up questing lemures against the back of its knees, and crumpled atop them.

"Sunbright, help!"

He'd almost forgotten Greenwillow guarding his back. He found her on her knees, pressed down by the sheer weight of an imp she'd skewered through the chest. The hilt of her slim sword was wedged between spikes, but the fiend simply flailed at her with horned hands like hard-swung morning stars.

"You have to tear them open!" Sunbright yelled. Unable to dive past the whirling arms, he opted to lunge. Harvester's spread tip rammed through the leather hide directly beside the shank of Greenwillow's sword. "Cut the other way!"

Veteran of a hundred battles, Greenwillow understood instinctively. Bracing with her knees, she put her slim muscles behind the bright edge of the keen blade. Sunbright plied his heavy hand-forged blade-fine quality, but no match for elven true-steel-to yank away from the elf's cut.

Neat as sawing a tree, the imp came apart in the center. The same brassy stink gushed out as its top half toppled behind its rear end. The tall horns struck sparks from the stone floor.

Yet three more imps crowded in, smashing lemures aside to kill the human and elf. Sunbright stifled a groan of exhaustion and despair. Already, his hands and arms and legs were trembling. Blood ran down his forearms and dripped to the ashy ground. More wet redness ran down his shirt from his aching neck where spikes had gouged a furrow in his shoulder. He was torn in a dozen other places, and Greenwillow, always pale, was almost as white as the bony creatures around them. Worn to the nub, they'd surely lose when these charging imps reached them.