She awoke early the following day, tired but functional. Carefully she sat up, and the cloth slid off, exposing her to the chilly morning air. Her body involuntarily shivered as a gust of wind blew by at a temperature far colder than she was used to at home.
She watched the camp come alive as the guards packed up. They did so at a speed that manifested their expertise and a hint of urgency Eliza was sure she had never seen from them before. The camp was packed up in no time, and all the guards were armored and ready to go.
Wasting no time, they set off down the road, not taking any time for breakfast; something had spooked them.
Traveling down the path, the guards kept their eyes watching the treeline for any movement, and a few held onto the hilt of their swords nervously. By now, the rest of the prisoners had noticed something wrong. Everyone sat in tense silence as they traveled on.
Eventually, Caldren was the one to break, “ Hey you! What's going on?” he demanded the nearest guard, who just so happened to be the Dwarf. The guard jumped at the sudden sound behind him and swore. He turned around and berated Caldren, “Silence ya fool.” he said with a scowl.
Caldren’s face flushed red at the Dwarf's words, but he bit his tongue. A moment later, the Dwarf explained the situation quietly.
“Sparky boy detected a demonic beast that came close to the camp last night. It could still be around. If ya draw it to us, I'll make sure yer the first it eats, ya hear me?” He said with a glare
Caldren recoiled as if he was struck and shut up. His frustration was apparent. The guard returned to watching the tree line
Eliza looked down the line of wagons at the only person she could think of who could be a ‘sparky boy.’ He was wearing a fine red linen robe that complimented his bright reddish brown hair and on the robe was a symbol of an open palmed hand with a flame sitting on it—marking him as a practitioner of Alderan of the Red sun’s church and a fairly low-ranking magician at that.
The man was fairly young and was furiously scribbling something down in his notebook, utterly oblivious to his surroundings.
His presence explained why this caravan had an excessive number of guards, as it seemed Grimhold now required a mage.
Eliza looked down at her restraints apprehensively. If the mage had detected the creature she saw last night, then she could expect that they would be under attack soon. She highly doubted that the guards would remove the restraints for her, and, as she was now, she was helpless.
She looked around. The guards were too busy watching the treelines to notice; the problem was the other prisoners. Would they or would they not keep it quiet if they saw her removing her restraints? Her eyes fell on Caldren, who was anxiously looking around, and she concluded that it was very likely.
Moving slowly to avoid drawing attention to herself, she began to fiddle with the ropes tied around her legs.
The caravan continued down the road unhindered for about an hour until they crested a hill, and, in the distance, a settlement could be seen at the base of a mountain. A visible wave of relief went over the guards; they had made it.
All that stood between them and their destination was an overflowing river that ran through the valley. Water occasionally submerged an old, dilapidated wooden bridge that spanned across the river. The river seemed to be the only viable way to cross for miles, and it was wide enough to fit maybe one wagon at a time to cross it.
Eagerly the caravan set down the hill, and Eliza kept her eye’s on the treeline as she continued to fiddle with the ropes tied around her legs. It was a slow and painstaking process, but she almost had them off. The guards may have relaxed, but Eliza knew better. While they were crossing the river would be a perfect time to strike the Caravan.
The Caravan reached the river unhindered, and the first supply wagon slowly rolled across the semi-submerged bridge unmolested. And then the second and the third. Finally, it came to be the turn for the prisoner wagons, and it was at this point when Eliza’s wagon was still halfway up the hill, and about half the guards were on the other side of the river with the Magician; when all hell broke loose.
Howling erupted from the treelines as demonic Beast-men broke out of the foliage and charged down the hill. Almost immediately, The Captain began barking out orders. Some of the guards were quick to act; some unlatched the horse from the wagons and rode them to the flank while the rest ran to form a shield and spear line.
However, the remaining guards froze up, shocked by the sudden turn of events. A reality that only told Eliza how inexperienced overall this squad of guards was.
Before any proper defensive line could be formed, the Beast-men were on them, and Eliza watched as men began to fall. The claws easily tore through what armor the guards wore, and in just the first few moments, several guards were lying dead or dying on the ground.
Abandoning all semblance of secrecy, Eliza began to tear at the final knots holding her legs bound while keeping an eye on the battle.
The attacking Demons were comprised of Beast-men, low-tier Demons aptly named for their body that was similar to a normal human, but that's where their similarities ended. Each beast-man had the head of an animal, the most common being bull-heads and wolf-heads, and instead of fingers, they had sharp claws that could rend metal.
If that wasn’t enough, they were hulking monstrosities that easily stood at least a head above a grown man. The only saving grace seemed to be that the guards easily outnumbered the invading force, but even that wasn’t much, as the bodies of guards littering the floor testified.
After shaking themselves out of their stupor, it took a bit, but the guards managed to form a line, and the situation stabilized a little. When the Captain got a moment, he pulled the trembling Private out of the line and, putting the keys into the private’s hands, shoved the young man towards the prisoner carts.
“Get the prisoners out and into the fray! We need them to bolster our lines!” He said, yelling his orders at the Private. The young man fumbled with the keys before running towards the cages.
Just then, one of the Demons, one that looked bigger and faster than the rest, A wolf head that was probably the leader of the group, broke through the line of guards and charged toward the wagons full of prisoners. Private Tom came to stand near the wagon and started looking through the many keys on the key ring for the correct one.
Eliza watched in dismay as the guard seemed not to notice the Beast-man that was charging straight for him. Quickly she started unraveling the last bit of the knot that was tying her down.
She heard the young guard scream in terror as the ropes slid off her legs. She saw the young guard raise his spear and point it at the charging Beast-man.
“St-st-Stay back, you fiend!” Tom yelled out in fear, his voice breaking, but, naturally, the Beast-man didn’t stop.
When the Beastman entered striking distance, Tom thrust the spear erratically at the Beast. The Beast-man easily saw it coming and in response, turned its body so that the spear went to the side, completely missing it.
Tom could hardly scream before the creature barreled into him and carried him into the side of one of the nearby wagons. The wagon began to tip over; its inhabitants screeched in terror and scrambled for the other side of the cart, thereby causing it to tip over into a roll down the hill fully, The Beastman stepped back, and Tom slumped to the ground unmoving, his spear rolling to a stop in the grass next to him.
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The Beastman reached down and, grabbing the Private by the head, lifted him before smashing his head onto the ground. Tom's helmet held out for a couple of hits before Eliza heard an audible crack, and Tom’s head caved in under the onslaught. The Beast-man left Tom's limp body on the ground, letting out a triumphant roar as it stood up.
It then began to scan through the carts, its gaze only met by terror from each of the cage's inhabitants. Unconcerned about the vast majority of the prisoners, it kept looking until its gaze landed on one person, Eliza.
Her gaze met its eyes, and a sneer stretched across its face. Eliza knew that it was this Beastman that she had seen the night before.
Stomping towards the cage, it excitedly grabbed onto the metal bars of the cage as Eliza and the other inhabitants scrambled to the other side. Muscles straining it slowly bent the metal bars using pure strength. Entrance created, it reached its arm through the gap and grasped its clawed hand at Eliza.
The movement of everyone in the cart to one side, combined with the weight of the giant Beast leaning on it, caused the wagon to tip sideways. Eliza felt her stomach drop as the wagon overturned, and she felt the world go upside down as she fell towards the top of the cage. Her head slammed into hard metal a moment later, and her vision swam.
The cage continued its descent down the hill, and Eliza felt someone slam into her, their elbow driving itself into her stomach. She gasped in pain as the cage finally seemed to come to a stop. She pulled the gag down and struggled to suck in deep lungfuls of air as she pushed herself to her hands and feet.
Moans and groans alike permeated the air as she struggled to her feet. She grabbed a nearby bar for support and stood up before looking outside the cage. Her still-swimming vision could make out the beast stomping down the hill toward them.
That being all the encouragement she needed, Eliza stumbled towards the opening the Demon had so graciously created in the cage. Thankfully because of the way the cage had flipped over, the exit was on the opposite side of the cage from the approaching Demon. She pushed herself halfway through the opening, only for someone's hands to grab her leg.
“Who said you’d get to go first?” Caldren yelled at her as he pulled on her leg to stop her; he was still struggling to get to his feet and seemed to be using her to help himself stand up.
Eliza scowled, “Don't touch me,” Eliza growled as she kicked him with her free leg.
Her heel sunk into his nose, and she felt bone crack under her foot. Caldren reeled back, yelping in pain as tears streamed out of his eyes, accompanied by a spurt of blood from his nose.
The idiot dealt with, Eliza shimmied the rest of the way out of the cage and fell forward, landing in the grass on her side. Quickly she rolled away from the cage and climbed to her feet. The prisoners seemed to have recovered somewhat and were clamoring and fighting to be the next one out of the cage. Over the sounds of their fighting, Eliza heard the heavy thumps of the giant Beast-man.
She saw the Beast bearing down on her in a full sprint. Instinctively Her hands grasped once again for a weapon that was no longer there, and Eliza fought back the surge of panic.
Taking a deep breath, she carefully watched the charging Beast; she noticed that, contrary to expectation, it slowed down when it saw that she wasn't running. It slowed to a running pace when it came near her as its clawed hands reached out to grab her; what it didn’t expect was for Eliza to dodge at the last moment.
Eliza ducked under its claws and jumped out of the way as its body flew by. She tucked in her head and landed on the ground in a roll. She rolled to her feet and started stumbling up the hill, largely thanks to the shackles still around her feet. As quickly as she could, she made her way towards Tom’s, almost certainly, dead body. Her goal was the spear that he had dropped.
Behind her, she heard the Beast-man come to a stop before she heard it start to run up the hill.
It didn’t take her long to find the spear; it lay a few feet to the body's right. She slightly changed her course and dropped to her knees, sliding to a stop next to it. She picked it up and, using her knees to position the sharp point in the air, furiously dragged the ropes around her arms against the sharp point.
A few slices later and a few accidental nicks that drew blood, the rope fell apart, freeing her arms. She looked back to see where the Beast-man was.
By this point, The Beast-man was more than halfway back up the hill, coming straight towards her, nearing a full-out sprint. And, to her relief, she could see the guards from the other side of the river, accompanied by the wizard, running up behind it.
She climbed to her feet, holding the spear in both her hands, The weapon comforting her nerves.
She watched the charging demon. It wasn’t slowing down this time; it seemed it knew that it was running out of time, as once the wizard and the other guards arrived to reinforce, the battle would be over. An idea popped into her mind, and she shifted the spear around in her hands and held still.
The Beast-man neared its heavy stomps, causing the ground to shake underneath its weight.
Bracing herself, she stabbed the butt of the spear into the ground and aimed it directly toward the Beast-man’s midsection. At the same time, she crouched down close to the ground and used her body to steady the spear. The Beast tried to dodge, but it was too late; the momentum of the Beast took it straight into the spear.
The spear bent under the force of the charge and, much to Eliza’s relief didn’t break as it stopped the Beast-man in its tracks. Unfortunately, Eliza realized she hadn’t managed to angle the spear right. Instead of going up and into the Beast-man’s heart, it had sunk about an inch below where it needed to go.
The Beast let out a loud, painful roar as it turned its angry, pain-filled eyes onto her. It took a step back, taking the spear with it before it wrenched it out of its stomach. A burst of blood came out of the wound, some landing on Eliza.
She had thought about keeping hold of the spear but opted not to. Instead, she let go and scrambled backward away from the Beast. The Beast proceeded to snap the spear in half and cast it aside.
Eliza back peddled as the Beast stomped towards her, rage filling its eyes. It quickly shortened the distance between them, and Eliza, unable to run, desperately looked for a way around it. She doubted that it would let her dash right by it again, but it might be her only choice. The Beast-man closed the last few feet, and Eliza prepared herself to run by.
Then, she heard the sound of something swirling in the air, followed by a meaty thunk. The Beast-man let out a howl of pain as it dropped to one knee.
Not one to let an opportunity pass, Eliza half-ran, half-hobbled around the Beast as it struggled to pull an axe that was buried into its leg out.
The Beast-man, occupied by the axe, didn’t notice her picking up the spearhead of the broken spear. Placing what was left of the wooden part between her teeth to free her hands, Eliza closed the distance and leaped onto its back.
The Beast managed to rip the axe out of its leg right as she landed on it. It threw the axe aside and tried to reach back to grab her, but it had too much muscle for its arms to reach her.
Eliza pulled herself up and latched onto its fury mane with one hand; with the other, she grabbed ahold of the spearhead and began to jab it into the Beast-mans' neck.
The Beast-man realized what she was doing and desperately tried to throw her off.
In fact, it was so focused that it didn’t notice as another guard came in from the side with his spear. The spear sunk deep and true underneath the rib cage into the heart of the Beast. A few moments later, the Beastman stopped and looked down at the spear, jutting out of it in disbelief.
Weakly it tried to reach for the spear to pull it out, but before it could, its knees gave out, and it crumpled down to the ground, landing on its knees.
Slowly it started to tilt over to the side. Quickly, Eliza let go and kicked off of the Beast-man’s back. She was airborne for a moment before landing awkwardly, staggering to the side. She tried to steady herself by putting her leg out, but it caught on the shackles holding her leg together. As a result, she went down, slamming her hip into the ground.
Eliza gasped as a sharp pain immediately began radiating from her hip. She grunted in pain as she struggled to sit up in time to see the Dwarf guard approach.
“That’ll teach ya ta touch me axe, ya lumbering buffoon!” The Dwarf guard said as he swaggered up to the Beast, his recovered axe resting on his shoulder. The Beast-man slowly turned its gaze onto Eliza.
The Beast attempted to reach out to her desperately, but its claw slumped to the ground a moment later. Dwarf-guard looked at Tom’s body, which was just on the other side of the Beast-man.
“Ya killed Tom, did ya? Quite a pity it is, he was the youngest.” he shook his head sadly as he walked towards the head of the Beast. “Go on ya, he's waiting for ya in the next life, and I'm sure he’s itchin fer revenge. Best not to keep em waiting,” He said as he raised his axe and brought it down onto the Beast's neck, Cleanly severing its head from its body in one clean stroke.
Eliza watched in shock at the strength the Dwarf guard held. The Dwarf guard looked up from the headless Beast-man, and his sad eyes crossed hers. Instantly they lit up.
“Aye, lass! Mighty fine job ya did keeping this one occupied. Good to see ya still alive, at least.” he said as he walked up to her and held out a hand.
Eliza looked at his proffered hand for a moment before opting to ignore it, “Shouldn’t you be helping the other guards. People are still fighting.” she said, looking over at the battle that was going on about twenty feet away.
“And let ya and the other prisoners getaway? I'm fraid not lass,” he remarked as he reached down, grabbed onto one of her wrists, and pulled her up to her feet. She sucked in a breath as another sharp pain shot through her hip.
“Besides,” he continued.
An explosion blew up somewhere down in the battle, and a couple of the beasts screamed in pain as they burned.
“Now that sparky boys’ back and their leader here bein dead, I suspect da Beast-men will retreat any moment now." He started to pull her around the wagon back, and she stumbled along behind him.
She looked again at the battle and, true to Dwarf’s word, The Beast-men were breaking off and retreating to the forest.
The dwarf guard brought her over to where the rest of the prisoners had been gathered together. They were sitting in a circle supervised by a couple of guards.
“She’s still alive? I thought she was dead with how focused that one was on her.” one of them asked.
“Tis, managed to hold off a near Tier-2 by herself. She did,” He said as he sat her down next to Caldren, still nursing his broken nose. Eliza’s eyes met his, and he gave her a glare promising a tremendous amount of suffering. Eliza rolled her eyes and looked away, focusing on the dialog between the Dwarf guard and the other.
“Really!” The guard remarked in surprise. “That's quite impressive. But I guess we shouldn’t expect anything less than an ex-soldier from The Silverian Empire.”
“Sure, sure, I worry about da fact dat dey’re attacking us so close. The Demons have never been dis smart in der attacks.” Dwarf guard said
“Ah, that's right.” The tone of the guard became more somber. “You weren't here to receive the news, Kolgit. Word is that the beasts have a leader now. And he's been directing the beasts and coordinating their attacks. The results are as you see here.” he tilted his head towards the battlefield littered with corpses.
There were six dead Beastman, not including the one Eliza had fought. But for every dead Beast-man, there were three dead guards. “Wish we could’ve arrived sooner, but the Demons took control of the waterworks a few days ago. As a result, the river's water level has risen, and it's more difficult to cross than before.” The Guard said.
Just then, they were interrupted by another guard coming. “Kolgit, Dale, The Captain is staying behind to take care of the cleanup; he wants you to rally a few guards and take both the prisoners and Sir Octavius into the outpost.
“Tell 'im it's as good as done. We’ll leave once sparky boy is ready.” Kolgit said in response. The guard nodded before heading off back toward the Captain.
Before turning to the group of prisoners, "Ya’ll hear that? Up to ya feet and down to the river ya go.”
Slowly all the prisoners stood up, and when the Magician came over, The guards began to shepherd everyone to the bridge.
The outpost at the base of the mountain loomed in the distance, and within it, whatever grim fate awaited them.