Even though they had downed the Wyvern, more monsters followed it. There were too many monsters in the crystal cavern. Monsters in front of them. Monsters swarming round to either side of them. Monsters behind them now, attacking Alex, who fell about them with the Clarent Sword, which glowed hot with a bright white light as it hewed limbs and heads from torsos and pierced armour and hide. Monsters everywhere.

Battle1

They fought off another wave of monsters, hacking through them and hurling spells and concoctions, shooting arrows and calling thunder, fire and wind.

But there were just too many of them. The monsters swarmed around them [may need to change these descriptions depending on what monsters are actually available in this chapter!]–giant rats with bulging muscled bodies and elongated teeth, huge red scorpions with deadly pincers and stingers, floating poisoned jellyfish with electric currents leaping between their tentacles, demon-possessed empty suits of armour that moved by themselves, seductive succubuses with female forms topped with devilish horns flying on big bat-like wings, eagles and cocaktrices and chimaeras and griffons and manticores and more.

‘Where did all these monsters come from?’ Horatio called out over the noise of the battle as he hewed through a rat with his sword. ‘How did they find the Sword?’

‘I have no idea!’ Primus shouted back over the sound of searing cockatrice-flesh as he sent magical fire into a group of them.

‘YES!’ somebody cried out in elation all of a sudden. A male voice, twisted with gleeful madness. ‘I HAVE IT! I HAVE IT! HALT YOUR ASSAULT, CREATURES OF BRAX!’

And then all at once the monsters stopped attacking them.

They just stopped. The suit of armour that Horatio had been about block a swordswing from lowered its weapon and stood straight and still to attention, as if waiting for its next set of orders. The jellyfish hung suspended in the air. The eagles landed on the cavern floor and stayed still. Indeed, all of the different creatures paused in their onslaught and remained fixed in place.

Horatio turned to look for who had commanded the monsters to stop, then gasped along with the other members of the party.

About twenty paces away, visible through the gaps in the sea of monsters that surrounded them, stood a regular-sized, caped, armoured man, presumably another Braxian champion.

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He was standing with one of his feet placed on Alex’s chest, who lay sprawled on his back on the cavern floor, unconscious, blood dripping from a gash on the side of his head.

And in the Braxian’s hand, held aloft, gleaming in the blue cavern-light, was the Clarent Sword.

Oh no.

‘Haha!’ exalted the Braxian. ‘Look, my comrades, my minions of Brax! I have claimed the Sword of Legend! I have succeeded where countless others have failed!’

Around him, along with many monsters, stood a number of other Braxians, some also wearing armour as he was, others wearing cowled robes like the cultists they had encountered in the public house in Kirts.

There had been so many monsters and Braxians in the attack that the party hadn’t been able to fend them all off from reaching Alex. They had gone around the party, in a pincer movement, flooding the whole cavern, overwhelming them.

‘Now watch me as I slay this so-called chosen “hero”!’ the Braxian with the sword said. ‘Witness my triumph so that Brax my reward me accordingly!’

The Braxian flipped the sword around so he was holding it blade-down in two hands, then lifted it up again, about to thrust it through Alex’s body.

He was too far away. There was no time.

‘No!’ several people cried at once.

Including someone standing near the Braxian.

Just as the he thrust the blade downwards, one of the robed cultists darted forwards and crashed into him with both hands outstretched, knocking him over and to the side so that his thrust went wide and clanged off the ground.

What?

The two Braxians clattered to the cavern floor–the armoured champion who had just been about to kill Alex, and the robed, purple-haired woman who had just knocked him over and prevented him from doing so.

Everyone else in the cavern, adventurer and monster alike, just watched them for a moment, stunned into perplexed, observant silence.

The Braxian regained his footing quickly, still clutching the sword. ‘What in all Hell are you doing, Sister Ursula?’ he screamed at the woman. ‘How dare you interrupt my moment of glory?!’

‘I can’t let you do this, Othello!’ the woman said back from where she pushed herself up from the ground. She looked over pleadingly at Horatio the party, spying them through the sea of monsters. ‘Quick!’ she implored them. ‘Don’t stop now!’

The Braxian, ‘Othello’ struck down at her with his sword and the woman cried out in anguish.

‘Go!’ Primus shouted all of a sudden. ‘Get to the Sword, everyone!’

As if ripped from a waking dream, Horatio suddenly came back to himself, realising that the woman had bought them another chance to defend Alex and win back the Sword.

He bolted forwards with the others, running past the stationary monsters towards the Braxians.

A tremendous booming noise sounded, and a terrible bright flash of white light filled Horatio’s vision for a moment, blinding him. He cried out in shock and pain.

When he opened his eyes, all the monsters, the Braxians, and the Braxian champion had vanished.

And with them, so had the Sword.