Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“Lead the way, darling.”

“Watch your step up here. Lots of bodies.”

“Right.”

Captain Skint shoved the faceless mess aside and pushed through the doorway, stepping clear and then turning to meet the first of the demons that lunged into view at the threshold. Her sword tip opened a wide grin in its throat. The next one, clambering over its fallen kin, lost the top of its head, bisecting its relatively small brain, which stopped working in any case.

Three more squeezed through and Skint took a step back to clear some room and let them in.

Talons slashed with murderous intent, but caught empty air. Jaws snapped on nothing. Surges to close and grapple missed again and again. The woman was a blur of motion to their eyes. A demon’s head jumped free of the rest of it, and the stumpy neck poured blood everywhere. Another shrieked as something kissed its belly and it looked down to see its intestines tumbling out—withered, empty things, like starving worms. Collecting them up, it waddled to the doorway—but that was blocked as dozens of demons struggled to press through the doorway. The disemboweled demon snarled and took two fatal talons to its eyes for its ill manners.

Skint helped a demon leap into a wall, and when it fell to the floor, she stamped her heel into its throat, then jumped away to avoid its thrashing.

She cast a gauging regard upon the swarm of gleaming eyes jammed in the doorway, and then stepped forward and began hacking with her sword. Sometimes, finesse was just stupid.

Flapp balanced on the crossbeam and watched as the third and last demon passed underneath. His quarrel buried itself in the back of the thing’s head, and as it fell, the sergeant flung the crossbow at the nearest beast—which had twisted around, eye flaring like coals—and saw it bounce from the demon’s flat fore-head even as Flapp plunged off the edge to land on the floor, two short swords snapping out but held points-down.

He rushed the demons. Blades slashed, intersecting wrists and forearms, slashed some more, cutting through hamstrings and other assorted, necessary tendons. He drove his head forward. Helmed bridge guard slammed with a happy crunch into a forehead, and then Flapp was past them both—they flopped and writhed behind him all messy with blood. He spun around and made quick work of them, and then retrieved his crossbow, only to snarl when discovering its bent arm. Flinging it away, he trundled down the corridor.

He could hear fighting.

He went to find it.

They could make out a mob of the bastards swarming a doorway, which meant someone was cornered, or, rather, had let themselves get cornered, which meant it was the captain. Grunting beneath the weight of the arbalests both women held, they sent two bolts tearing into the crowd. Torn bodies and pieces of meat flew.

And then, with a scream, Huggs charged the rest. Cursing, Wither dropped her arbalest and unsheathed her swords, setting off after her. By the time she reached the writhing mound, Huggs was buried somewhere beneath the heaving press of snarling demons.

Wither started chopping off limbs, heads.

She saw the captain’s sword tip lunge from the doorway, driving deep between two widening eyes, and a moment later Skint kicked her way into view.

The demons broke, a half dozen bolting with shrieks up the corridor.

Where someone else hit them.

Wither started dragging bodies off Huggs, and found her pounding on a knife she’d driven through the top of a demon’s head, but its jaws were still clamped tight around her left thigh.

“You idiot!” snapped Wither, “get your hands away so I can pry it loose. Gods below, we could have stood back and cleared the whole mess with a couple more bolts!”

Huggs spat blood. “Why should Skint get all the fun? Get this fucking thing off my leg!”

“I’m trying—sit still!”

Sergeant Flapp arrived. “Three got away!”

“There’s more,” said Skint.

“You said one!” Wither hissed, finally loosening the demon’s death-bite.

“So I was off by a few. Where’s Dullbreath? Anyone see him?”

“Not since we split,” said Flapp.

“Same here,” added Wither, and Huggs nodded as she sat up.

Skint swung her sword to shed gore and blood from the blade. “They’re on the run now. So we hunt.”

Her soldiers checked their weapons.

Flapp saw one of the arbalest bolts and kicked at it. “Nice.”

“Got a whole room of the damned things.”

“I need me a replacement.”

“We’ll take you there, Sergeant—”

“Take us all there,” said Skint. “Then we split up again. Rendezvous in the main hall up top, and don’t dally. Someone’s running this army, and I want it skewered.”

“Follow me,” said Wither.

Whimpering, the imp picked its way around yet another heap of demon corpses. Poor children! This was a slaughter, a terrible, grievous, dreadful slaughter!

And now they were hunting the survivors down—nowhere to hide!

Human stench everywhere, down every passage, every twisting, turning corridor, every cursed chamber and rank room. There was no telling where they were now, no telling what vicious ambushes they’d set up.

The imp crouched, quivering, hugging itself, and crooned its grief. Then it shook itself, drawing free its tiny sword. Enough of these evil tunnels and warrens! To the ladder! Flee this cruel place!

With renewed determination, and a healthy dose of terror, it scampered.

Breathing hard, the demon froze, nose testing the pungent, bitter air. Its eyes were wide, seeking the telltale bloom of body heat—those cursed cloaks, they’d been sopping wet, cold to the touch, blind to the demon’s eyes; and the iron chain wasn’t much better. Even so, there was no way a human could sneak up on it. No way.

It needed to find somewhere to hide. A privy hole, maybe. A crack in a wall. Anywhere.

The demon edged forward, and suddenly the human stench was overpowering. Mewling, it slowly straightened—and then turned around.

The bearded face hovering a hand’s width in front of its snout elicited a piercing scream of horror from the demon.

“Looking for me?” And then a red-stained studded fist rammed into its face. Twice, thrice, eight, nine, twelve times.

As the demon crumpled at his feet, Flapp grunted and said, “Didn’t think so.”

The two demons, boon companions for centuries, clutched each other, sharing a puddle of rank piss pooling around them, as two female humans stepped into view. Ferocious barbed bolts flung the two demons apart like rag dolls.

Wither began working the crank to reload her weapon, whilst Huggs limped forward. “You see them? Fucking pathetic.”

“You’re getting soft, Huggs.”

“Loaded?”

“Yes.”

“My turn. Keep an eye peeled, Withy.”

“Count on it.”

The imp could hear random death-cries echoing down the corridors, each one trembling through its scrawny, puny form. Reaching the iron ladder, it clambered upward as fast as its little limbs could carry it.

Not fast enough.

“Got ya.”

A mailed hand snatched the imp up, plucked it from the railing.

The imp squealed and thrashed about, but it was no use. It struggled to bring its sword to bear, but the man reached with his other hand and broke the imp’s sword arm. Snap, like a twig. Broke the other one, too, and then both legs. That really hurt!

Helpless, the imp dangled limp in the man’s grip. He stared down at it, breathing loud, mouth hanging open.

And then he bit down on the imp’s head and held it in his mouth as he climbed the ladder.

That breath! The imp cringed, even through its agony of broken bits everywhere. That breath!

As soon as they reached the top, and the man walked out of the armory, along the corridor, and out to the main chamber, the imp sent forth a frantic cry, a sorcerous plea bristling with desperate power.