"Hell indeed." Led's voice was quiet, but carried well in the small enclosed space before them all.
"This is what we fight here. The very powers of Hell itself. If we ever want to stay the undead here as Mondul has commanded then this is what we must face."
The pause in his speech carried volumes, but nothing really needed to be said. They knew the dangers, knew what Could happen, just as surely as they heard the heavy iron floodgate clang shut behind them minutes before.
A general call to arms had been made as soon as the news was carried. All assembled that were able. Two of the others had just finished a patrol and were sleeping, exhausted, leaving Boink to seal them in for their fate. A complex knock system and call response was set up to ensure when, IF, it would be safe to open the doors.
If not, Boink had been given instruction to cave in the entrance to Oddbodd's domain here. All knew what was at stake.
"I thank you all, and may our goddess watch over us. I cannot think of any with whom I would rather die."
"Dear, if you would, clear the stones and then gear up behind us."
Sarah nodded, and gave Led's hand a squeeze before depositing her protections behind the wall of living steel and bone that were the dwarves of the Wall of Zealots.
In the eerie silence breathing could be heard, and the faint utterings of prayers to Mondul. Then the barricade crumbled.
All Hell did not break loose at that time. But to those trapped in the room with it, they could feel it ... expand into their space. Their skin suddenly felt, taut, as if the pressure in the room suddenly changed. The screams of tormented souls hit them first. Numbing their ears, stealing their senses.
It was seconds later, before they had re-oriented that the first wave hit them, pouring from the fissure in the rock before them. To their eyes, they looked like men, male and female. Their skin was pale, their hair long and matted, pale yellow, tan or red. But there was an unnaturalness to their motion, as if they were not quite accustomed to those bodies.
The sudden thuds of flesh on metal and warcries of dwarf and demon alike filled the air. The demons charged without hesitation and fear, throwing themselves upon the dwarves in reckless abandon. Their speed and strength was considerable and a pair of demons leaped into the cluster of dwarves, knocking several to the ground.
Led struck out at one of them with his spear, impaling a leg from behind, driving it's attention toward him. The monster bled, however. It could be killed. Soon the dwarves changed tactics, working as a group to bring down the ones that made it through the front ranks, while a few dwarves maintained the front line. Glacies, held the front, along with several of her Masons, Erith, Ascubis, Asmel and Draconius. Ragnar and the Hound were there as well, holding the line against the incoming waves.
Maintaining a line only worked so well in the ensuing chaos. The demons would leap from the fissure, or tackle dwarves, down in a tangle of limbs and steel. The demons were incredibly strong, treating steel like a normal dwarf would treat leather.
It was after a large wave, that nearly swamped the dwarves that Erith and Ascubis rallied, carving their way to the fissue and following up it into the darkness.
The struggle among the remaining combatants was so fierce that no one noticed their surge, nor a few minutes later when demons began pouring through the fissure again.
Led was fighting his own demons now, a pair that even he was hard pressed to keep back. Sarah, down and wrestling with a bear of a man nearby. Thesaurusaurus and Reg, beating a demon into paste. Ragnar held her post still near the fissure, the ground slick beneath her with blood. The Hound too remained resolute, broken bodies lying against walls nearby.
Lor was not the first to fall under the onslaught. A demon had sprung upon him and none were near to help. The red-haired beserkeress had jumped at him, tackling him then headbutted him into unconciousness. It had been mercifully short after that, but not clean. The demon had taken an axe to a leg shortly thereafter by Kolok, who grimly pushed through his bouts of weakness. Kolok did not get the kill, but had incapacitated it long enough for Led to get the job done with his spear.
To everyone's surprise Erith plunged back down the fissure at that point, knocked back by another wave that crashed upon the defenders. He did not make the safety off the defenders but was tackled and dragged into the incoming throng, even as the demons passed him and leapt into the fray. He did not rise again.
With the new foes the fighting raged even more fierce. Thesaurusaurus, the scribe fell, strangled from behind.
Led had moved to help the others, glancing over at Sarah, who was still struggling with her single attacker, one of the dwarfess' arms bent askew. He would have needed to disengage in order to help and was confronted by a pair of blonde behemoths, beards flecked with spittle and blood. It pained him but he engaged the pair, stabbing out with a series of short rapid thrusts to slow and stop their advance.
The incoming rush of enemies split across the surface, some flowing eastward towards Ragnar and the Hound, but the majority fell upon the Masons at the west-most side, steel meeting flesh in an uneven cacophony of scrapes and grunts. Glacies attempted to rally against the charge with a call 'Fer the wall!' but it was cut short by a brutal punch to the right side, under his weapon arm. The force of the blow staggered him, and caved in part of his plate. But the Masons charged their foes with similar ferocity. Asmel, Draconius, Reg, onul rained blows upon their foes as Glacies staggered back, gasping for breath that wouldn't seem to come.
But for every Mason at the wall it seemed like there were two foes. Bones broke, and blood flowed, demon and dwarf alike. Ragnar and the Hound worked methodically, like a pair of well-honed shears, cutting stubble. Kolok and Led worked as a pair, hammer and anvil. Kolok took the beating while Led rained down strikes, leaving an impaled demon writhing beneath him until he could finish it off. The Masons, however, had never truly prepared for battle. They were not weak, and were used to hammer and chisel, but the dance of death was less familiar.
Glacies fell, winded, by a blow from behind as he continued to gasp for air, his warped plate preventing him from being able to breathe properly. And then Asmel too fell, first to the ground, whether tripped, or slipped on a patch of blood none were sure, but a pair of demons were on him in a flash, and he remained down, limp and broken. Draconius with his flashing sword stood valiantly amid his fallen friends, and for a moment stemmed the tide, removing fingers and even a limb that was raised against him. When he fell the entire side crumpled in and became chaos, demons beating on downed foes until they stopped twitching.
It was then a strange silence fell. Led looked up with new eyes and saw their foes' true forms. Distorted by shadows and consumed by fire and blood they were hideous beasts. Pale and red they looked in the were-light, and although human, were utterly inhuman to his sight. He said a quick prayer to his Goddess and felt her peace envelop him. Were he to die here it would be no great matter. Death comes to all. Death was simple, it was clean. And pierced every living thing to the core. His spear took on a cold radience and he felt death coming. It came for all things, dwarf and demon alike.
And in his hand he held Death. Little stood out to him from the next few minutes of battle but the serene calm he felt. His first foe shuddered as the spear entered, sideways, slipping between the ribs from behind as it took the fire and simply sucked it out, replacing it with cold steel. The light and shadow faded rapidly as he twisted and when the thing lying before him looked human again he moved on to the next. This one circled him, as if trying to engulf him in flame and shadow as well, but a scything sweep from Ragnars' axe took out a leg and the next second Led was in the air, pinning an arm beneath his foot as his spear found the throat of his prostrate enemy.
Kolok was lying immobile nearby, but rose swiftly to help and combined they re-inforced the Masons, though too late to save Reg, whose helmet was lying partially crushed to one side of his immobile body. Onul was all that remained, beset by foes and backed against a wall but the frigid shaft flicked out and drew an attacker away, pouring smoke and fire from a deep wound.
Last of all Led bore down on the demon straddling his beloved. Her arm was locked in place holding it away just enough that the demon could bring little force to bear but Sarah's other arm hung useless and bent at her side. They were at an impasse, one with a grip that could crack black walnuts, the other an insatiable appetite to strangle and maim that they were locked in struggle and had been from nearly the beginning of the battle.
And then there was silence.
(Ok, sure, everyone was breathing like a bellows, but the Relative silence descended upon them like a fog.)
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Topic: Geshud Osod, the Fortress of Bones (Community/Story in Legendary Lands) (Read 102128 times)