More howls rose through the air all around Bo. They weren’t close yet, but it wouldn’t be long before more patrols converged on his location. The pitmaster cursed himself for being too slow to silence the demon dog before it could rouse its pack mates. Now, he was about to be up to his neck in monstrous hounds. His only hope was to get away from this spot, find his friends, and kill the champion before the demon dog men killed them all.
It was a tall order, but Bo refused to let his friends down.
A new hand flashed through his thoughts. The last four cards in Bo’s deck were useful, though far from a perfect combination. He activated Carnivore’s Cleaver first, using only a single Strength mana. Combined with his natural ability and the equipped cleaver, the card made quick work of the last Anubite. Bo left the dog man laying on the ground, its top half separated from its bottom.
But as fast as that demon went down, another group of dog men came tearing around the far end of the alley. They howled at the sight of him, ropy strands of saliva flying from their muzzles, and charged down the narrow street with terrifyingly fast strides.
Bo still had a clear enough picture of the town in his head to know the new patrol was between where he was and the champion he had to fight. He drew a new hand and spent another two Strength mana to activate Hog’s Hop.
“Incoming!” Bo shouted as he soared through the air. He crashed down in the center of the second patrol, stomping one Anubite flat. The blast of force from the card exploded from Bo in every direction and slammed the Anubites into the wooden structures on either side of the alley with bone crunching force. The dog men struggled back to their feet but were utterly unprepared for what came next.
Bo put another two points of Strength mana into activating Hackstorm. His cleaver flashed in a whirling orbit around him, twisting and turning in his hands to bring its cutting edge to bear. The powerful attack severed limbs, ripped through snouts, and cleaved dog men into bleeding chunks. Blood, fur, and meat rained down around Bo as the grisly storm ended.
And you think I’m the monster? That was a truly impressive display of destruction, Bo. You’re becoming a far more capable warrior than my people had imagined possible. Now I understand why humans were banned from the Grail Game for so long.
“Maybe if you’d all just left us alone, I wouldn’t have to do any of this,” Bo said.
Perhaps. But I think you should appreciate just how much you have grown through this adversity. You are far more powerful now than when I found you. Those shorts are still ridiculous, though.
Bo ignored the barb and hustled to the end of the alley. He looked both ways for more Anubite patrols, then took off down the road when he saw none. The pitmaster ducked in behind buildings when he heard approaching patrols, hiding his advance from the dogs as best he could. More than once he had to stop moving when patrols converged near his hiding place. Bo tried to eavesdrop on the Anubites, but they communicated with one another in a complex series of barks, howls, and yaps that seemed to convey an incredible amount of information in very short bursts.
Their communication isn’t just language. They are all connected to the demon core that empowered them. Their champion guides them through that connection.
“Great,” Bo said. “Now they have telepathy?”
Not exactly. It’s more subconscious than that. Almost as if their minds were directly linked. The devil chieftains use something like this during large-scale wars to communicate rapidly across the front while simultaneously visualizing strategic elements of the battle. Magic can be very impressive.
“I’ve noticed,” Bo said.
And I’ve noticed something about our adversaries. The demonic possession did not entirely destroy the hosts.
“The only things left of the people these demons took over are bloody scraps,” Bo whispered. “That’s pretty much entirely destroyed, if you ask me.”
Humans are not the primary hosts. I believe the men and women of this town were sacrificed to open the way for demons to inhabit dogs.
That made a certain sense. The Anubites were clearly more canine than humanoid. “You’re saying the dogs are still alive, somehow?”
Not exactly. But I sense them in the possessed. Their spirits are not entirely extinguished.
Bo wasn’t sure what to make of that. Knowing the dogs were still sort of alive didn’t change his current situation. He filed the information away for later and prepared to move again.
The pitmaster had hunkered down beside a sod-roofed little house with scorched walls and windows covered only by the tattered remnants of tanned hides. The smell coming from inside was atrocious, but Bo didn’t want to explore its origins. From what Barbie had just told him, there were probably a bunch of sacrificial victims rotting in there. Seeing the carnage wouldn’t help Bo bring vengeance on those who’d died.
Revenge is a dangerous game, Bo.
“My whole life’s dangerous,” Bo said. “And revenge will at least feel good.”
The pitmaster hadn’t seen a patrol for nearly a minute. The Anubites’ howls and barks still echoed through the air, but seemed to get further away, not closer. That was good. Now he could focus on finding Jenny, Martin, and the others. Then they’d go after the champion and destroy the demon core.
A lone jackal scout wandered past Bo’s hiding spot. It went a few steps further, then froze with its nose raised to the air. The Anubite took a deep breath and turned its head from side to side, sniffing at the air. Its long, purple-black tongue lolled from its open snout as it drew in another breath.
Bo pulled another hand from the deck. Webspinner, Danger Spice, Severance, and Juice Boxer. He lunged out of hiding and activated Severance. A critical strike ripped a hunk out of the Anubite’s back and stuffed a chunk of meat into Bo’s personal inventory. Juice Boxer fired off next to slap a Blood Mark on the Anubite’s chest. Bo tossed in Danger Spice, and his turn came to an end.
The Anubite glared at Bo, raised a hand to strike, and froze in place.
A Blood Mark flared brilliant crimson while the dog man’s eyes dimmed and glazed over. The last of the creature’s life energy flooded out of its wounded body and slammed into Bo with surprising force.
YOU ARE ALREADY AT FULL HEALTH. NO FURTHER WOUND LEVELS TO HEAL.
Bo suddenly felt good. He had more energy than ever before and all the minor cuts and bruises he’d suffered in his fights today faded away to nothing. The pitmaster swore his skin glowed with excess vitality.
That is interesting. I wonder if there will be any side effects from over healing.
“Cross your fingers that doesn’t happen,” Bo said.
I don’t have fingers. Let me borrow yours?
“Nice try,” Bo whispered.
More howls rose into the air in the distance. While most of them came from the area of the town where Bo had already passed, a few of the signals came from different directions. Patrols to the north and south made their presences known with strident howls followed by short, sharp yaps of alarm. Bo tried to imagine what had the dog men riled up in those directions.
The answer hit him with dark certainty.
Jenny was up to something..
That would be just like her. I like that woman. She knows what she wants and goes after it.
“Yep,” Bo agreed. “She’s great. Now be quiet and let me think.”
If most of the Anubites were searching for Bo in the area he’d left behind, and others were chasing Jenny and Martin through different parts of the town, that gave him an opening to go after the champion. The pitmaster would’ve liked to have backup, of course, but wasn’t sure if the rest of his allies would be any use in the sky a fight. Without cards, they might just become walking targets or human shields for the other champion to use against Bo.
Maybe he should just go after the demon core alone.
But leaving his friends alone in a town full of angry Anubites felt like a terrible idea. If anything happened to Jenny and the others while he was off chasing the champion, Bo wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
You cannot do everything. Focus on doing the things only you can accomplish.
Bo hated it when the devil was right, but there was no arguing with Barbie’s logic. If he offed the champion and took its core, the Anubites might croak at the same time. His friends were in danger, but taking the time to save them would give the enemy champion time to mobilize his forces to stop Bo.
And that wasn’t even considering that Jenny and Martin might have put themselves in danger specifically to give Bo the opening he needed to do his job.
Kill the champion.
That thought foremost in his mind, Bo took off in the direction he’d first sensed the champion. He used his cards to sneak attack patrols whenever the opportunity presented itself. Between the Hog’s Hop, Hackstorm, and Juice Boxer cards, the pitmaster was a holy terror for anything that got in his way. Those monsters who survived the initial onslaughts were dropped with Severance, adding Meat to his inventory. By the time Bo reached the building that held the champion, he’d overhealed himself more times than he could remember and had twenty Meat stockpiled.
It was time to end this.
I can feel the champion ahead. Like the air ahead of a lightning strike.
That was the most accurate description Bo could imagine for the tension that hung around him. The presence of the other champion weighed on the pitmaster’s thoughts and made his nerves jump and twitch beneath his skin. And if he could feel his enemy, then whatever was inside that building could almost certainly sense his presence. Bo couldn’t rely on the advantage of surprise in this fight.
That is not your style, anyway. Overwhelming force is the way for an overgrown bearded wrecking ball of your size and strength. Jump in. Smash heads. Chop them apart. It has worked well so far.
Bo would normally agree, but the sight of the enemy’s lair made him hesitate. The building was a fifty-foot wide dome built from enormous bone ribs and swathes of tanned hides. The only entrance Bo found after circling the building was a dark opening that seemed far too much like an open gullet for his comfort.
Too bad no one gave a shit about his comfort. This is what he had to do.
“Here we go,” Bo muttered, and strode forward with his cleaver in hand.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
A moist wind blew out of the entrance, plastering Bo’s rubberized apron to his bare legs. Blood from dead Anubites dried into sticky scabs against his thighs and calves. The air’s touch against his skin was disgusting, like a lapping tongue. Gross as all that was, Bo ignored it and pressed on. He hadn’t come this far to back down now.
The dark entryway telescoped when Bo stepped into it. The dark opening stretched into a shadow-filled tunnel lit only by a flickering orange light from its far end. The way out had vanished behind Bo the second he crossed its threshold, trapping him in a passage filled with a choking, animal stench. The hot, damp wind made the tunnel feel like some monstrous beast’s throat.
I think this is a bad idea.
“Little late, Barbie,” Bo said.
With each step he took, the darkness thickened around the pitmaster. There was something horrible ahead, he knew that in his bones, but there was no turning back. Even when the ragged, bestial chanting started, Bo kept walking. He put one foot in front of the other until he’d walked down that dark hallway and into the devil’s den.
“All my work, wasted,” the devil said from a throne made of bones and strange wire frames. “If I’d known you’d just walk right into my trap, I wouldn’t have sent my men to steal the Roast.”
“If I’d known you were just a jumped-up dog, I wouldn’t have bothered with my cleaver,” Bo responded, hefting the weapon. “A rolled-up newspaper would do the job just as well.”
The two champions eyed one another for a long moment. Bo knew he looked ridiculous in his apron, gloves, and shorts. But he’d much rather look like a B-movie slasher villan than the thing crouched on the massive throne before him.
Its head was part human, part canine. The left half of its face was male, the right female. A black jackal’s snout, lined with crooked fangs, thrust itself through the torn flesh of the mismatched halves to drool saliva onto the thing’s bloated, furry chest. The dark champion leaned forward to get a better look at Bo, its sharp elbows resting on knees covered in tattered skin from past victims. Like the other Anubites, this one’s body was studded with chunks of dead humans. A knot of twisted flesh over the creature’s heart held what appeared to be a chunk of crystalized blood. The thing throbbed like a heart, and its power sang in Bo’s mind with a siren’s terrible magnetism.
That, the pitmaster knew, was the demon core. If he destroyed that, the fight was over.
Bo glanced around the dome, where a perimeter of other dog men stomped their feet and roared a demonic chant the pitmaster couldn’t understand. The Anubites held no weapons, but their long claws and jagged fangs were more of a threat than any knife or sword. Their eyes burned with a hatred that sharpened their rage to a scalpel’s edge, and Bo knew the only way out of here was to kill everything in the chamber.
“What is it you think you’ll accomplish here?” the Anubite champion asked.
“I’ll rub your nose in the shitty mess you made,” Bo said. “Then I’ll put you down like the rabid dogs y’all are.”
The jackals laughed, a raucous, horrifying sound. They had no fear the human could do what he said. They believed their superior numbers would protect them from the human’s anger. They had the utmost faith in the demonic creature that led them into battle.
They were certain their champion could not fail.
Bo planned to prove them wrong.
The pitmaster rushed to the throne while his deck dealt him a hand. The riffling of cards drowned out the fears that tried to worm their way through his thoughts. All that remained was the cold certainty that only one champion would leave this cursed place.
His hand flashed in front of his eyes as he reached the throne, and Bo activated cards almost out of reflex. Danger Spice was first out of the gate, and the rival champion howled in pain as the magic powder hit its eyes and flooded its nostrils. Before the creature could recover, Bo activated the newly updated Severance card, and his cleaver sliced a chunk from the creature’s chest near the throbbing core.
DAMAGE RESISTED. WOUND LEVELS REDUCED BY 50%. 2 WOUND LEVELS INFLICTED.
Bo cursed at his bad luck. He’d hoped the attack would overwhelm the creature’s defenses and damage, or even destroy, the core. The monster’s damage resistance had thwarted that plan, though, leaving the Anubite champion with little more than a scratch.
Fortunately, Bo’s next card was Hog’s Hop, which he used to leap clear of the throne before the champion could launch a counterattack. He landed near the tent’s perimeter, where the jackal-headed menaces swarmed to surround him.
Just as Bo had hoped.
With a roar, he activated Hackstorm, followed instantly by Juice Boxer.
The combination had proved deadly time and again as Bo crossed the town in search of the champion, and it was every bit as dangerous this time. Anubites screamed in pain as the cleaver ripped them limb from limb. The survivors could only groan as the Blood Marks stripped their life force away and fed it to Bo.
The pitmaster expected another rush of vitality from his fallen enemies. This time, though, something was different.
He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Air rushed out of his lungs, and it was all the pitmaster could do to stay on his feet. Catching his breath was impossible. Spots of red danced in his vision.
Bo felt like he was dying.
JUICE BOXER POWER SURGE UNLOCKED: LIFE OVERLOAD
Life taken from your foes has exceeded your maximum core capacity and wound levels ten times in the past twenty-four hours. You have activated the Life Overload power surge.
In any turn in which you heal beyond your maximum wound levels, you will now gain one Infernal Visage. This provides you with five additional wound levels and provides a temporary cumulative boost to Damage Resistance. This boost is removed when the additional wound levels are depleted.
Only one Infernal Visage may be active at any time.
LIFE OVERLOAD ACTIVATED. DAMAGE RESISTANCE INCREASED.
The horrible pain in his center vanished. His skin felt too tight, somehow, but the pitmaster didn’t care. He was alive, and he’d unlocked a new ability that would certainly help him in this fight. More wound levels and damage resistance would even the playing field.
Bo turned from the carnage he’d created with his cleaver at the ready. The other Anubites drew back from him, their heads lowered, eyes averted. They whimpered and pawed at the ground with their feet, torn between fighting and running away from the monster who’d just blasted a dozen of their friends into bloody scraps.
“Looks like your puppies don’t want to play anymore,” Bo said to the enemy champion. “Why don’t you get down off that chair and take your whipping, dog.”
The wounded Anubite glared at the pitmaster. He held up one hand, his own blood smeared across the palm, and showed it to Bo. “You think this matters to me? You are nothing human. My master has granted me power you can only imagine. Let me show you the true meaning of strength.”
Something is coming through the demon core. You should run. NOW.
Bo would have loved to follow the devil’s advice, but there was nowhere to run. The champion’s little speech had rallied its Anubite minions. The ring of dog men had closed the gap left by their dead brothers, forming a wall around Bo and the demonic champion.
His father had always told the pitmaster that a time would come in every man’s life when running wasn’t an option. “When that time comes, son, you’ll either fight, or you’ll die ,” the old man had said. “Most men won’t believe they’re up against that wall. They’ll try to worm their way out of it. Those men will die. Don’t be one of them.”
This was Bo’s moment. He felt it in his gut. If he didn’t put everything he had into this fight, there’d be nothing of him left.
“Power isn’t enough,” Bo said to the champion as it stalked toward him, a long, scabrous tail dragging behind him. “Killing me’s gonna take heart. More than a dog like you can know.”
“You keep calling us dogs,” the foul champion said. “They were our vessels, our tools. We convinced them we could lift them up. They thought they were helping the humans they brought to our master. We are demons, human. There are no dogs here.”
Bo saw it then. Just a flash, only that, of dogs howling at a pyre, changing, shifting, as the human logs they’d stacked so high burned with eldritch fire. Those were not howls of victory, but of shame and betrayal. The poor pups had only tried to help, and it had cost them everything.
“That’s too bad,” Bo said, and drew a new hand. “I’d have shown mercy to dogs. You’ll get none.”
He and the vile champion threw themselves at one another. Cards flared through Bo’s mind, and he the sound of shuffling decks echoed in his thoughts as loud as the champion’s howls. Fast as Bo was, though, the rival champion was even faster.
Its claws flashed at Bo, slamming into his chest so hard the pitmaster’s breath exploded from his lungs. The attack was shockingly powerful. In one fell swipe, the other champion stripped away Bo’s extra health levels and the damage resistance. The beast followed up the savage slash with a bone-chilling howl that drove a spear of ice through Bo’s heart.
RESOLVE RESIST FAILED. FEAR CARD ADDED TO YOUR DECK.
An image of the card flashed through Bo’s mind, but it held no text or other sign of what it would do. Still, the card didn’t have to do anything. Every time he drew new cards, Bo was at risk of pulling that dead card into his hand. That wouldn’t hurt him directly, but it would cut down on the options available to him during each round.
You should work on strengthening your Resolve. Spend some time in icy water. Deprive yourself of food. Resist Jenny’s wanton charms.
“Not the time, Barbie,” Bo said.
The fight went on for what felt like hours. Bo and the rival champion whittled away at each other’s wound levels, but neither could gain the upper hand. Where the dark champion seemed to have infinite wound levels and enough damage resistance to stop most of Bo’s most powerful attacks, the pitmaster healed so quickly from his wounds with Meat, or savage Hackstorm and Juice Boxer attacks against the minions, that the Anubite couldn’t seal the deal. The fear card appeared again and again, eating up Bo’s opportunities to cause more damage as he felt the soul-searing cold of pure dread rush through him.
“Enough,” a familiar voice burst from the Anubite’s mouth. “I did not empower these fools to let you survive.”
Gontar is not pleased.
It was as if a switch was flipped in the Anubite’s soul. The demon core blazed so brightly it burned Bo’s eyes, and the pitmaster staggered back. He raised a hand against the infernal power, but didn’t dare look away. If he took his eyes off the Anubite, he was as good as dead.
He might be, anyway.
Because screams exploded from the crates beneath the throne. Ghostly forms of men and women writhed in torment, and cords of power burst from them to pour into the dark champion. The creature threw its head back and howled as its muscles swelled beneath its skin. The monster was no longer just a demon-possessed dog.
It had become a vessel for Gontar.
Bo was ready to dodge out of the way of another attack.
He was not ready for the blast of light that erupted from the Anubites’ chest and blasted into his.
The sudden impact threw Bo through the ring of Anubites. His back slammed into one of the massive ribs that supported the flayed tent. With a groan, Bo flopped onto the ground. Every inch of his body ached, and Bo didn’t need a message from the system to tell him he was nearly dead.
ONE WOUND LEVEL REMAINING. DEATH IMMINENT.
“Bring him to me,” Gontar growled through the Anubite’s mouth. “Put him in the cage.”
Clawed hands grabbed Bo by the shoulders and dragged him into the air. The urge to fight was strong, but he knew this wasn’t the time to fight. He was out of Meat, which only left him with one way to heal himself. He had to think this through, because he’d only have one chance to survive.
And if he died, so would Martin.
And Jenny.
Bo needed two cards. He closed his eyes and dealt himself a new hand.
Fear.
Hog’s Hop.
Juice Boxer.
Hackstorm.
“Last chance to be a good puppy,” Bo said to the champion. He needed to distract Gontar, just for a second.
The dark champion reached out and curled his claws in Bo’s hair. “You are a dead man. Your foolish quips will—”
Bo unleashed the Hackstorm.
Gontar’s vessel shouted in surprise as two of its fingers were lopped off by the cleaver that Bo had never unequipped.
The flashing storm of steel took out the rest of the dog men around Bo with a series of brutally precise strikes. The cleaver took off muzzles, severed limbs, and unspooled entrails like dumped bowls of gruesome spaghetti.
Bo didn’t stop there, though. He activated Hog’s Hop the instant his feet touched the floor and leapt straight up into the air.
Anubites rushed in to grab him when he landed, but the card’s second effect blasted them away. Several of them fell, but a few were still on their feet. Those snatched at Bo, along with more of their allies. For his last action, Bo triggered the Juice Boxer, marking every Anubite he’d touched that round.
His turn ended, and life force flowed into him from the Blood Marked demons. Energy restored his wound levels and triggered the Life Overload. Pain vanished in a golden glow, leaving Bo stronger and better defended.
“Die, damn you!” Gontar shouted.
The champion tried to grab Bo’s neck with both hands, but the pitmaster caught the creature’s wrists. They struggled against one another, locked in a deadly dance. Whichever one faltered first would die.
Bo’s eyes locked on the Anubite’s and he saw something in them that shook him to the core. Behind the rage and hate, he saw something else.
Confusion.
Pain.
And, shockingly, love.
Barbie was right. Some part of the dog was still in there..
“You made a mistake,” Bo said, pleading with the canine soul. “But you can undo part of it. Fight him, boy!”
For a moment, Bo thought the poor dog would fight free of the demon’s control. The bestial champion shuddered in his grasp, its eyes rolling in their sockets. And then its lolling tongue reached out to lick the back of Bo’s hand. That simple gesture told Bo all he needed to know. The dog had tried. He’d helped Bo, but he wasn’t strong enough to win the fight on his own.
The pitmaster would have to end this.
“Sorry, boy,” Bo said.
He slammed his forehead into the stunned Anubite’s face. The demon howled in anguish, then yipped at its allies. The other dog men drew back, whimpering. They shuddered as the demons inside them tried to force them to attack Bo.
But the dogs trapped in those bodies were true and good. They held their ground and gave Bo the time he needed to finish the fight.
“How?” Gontar groaned through the shell he’d possessed.
“Not everything in this world is evil,” Bo said. “They’re not called man’s best friends for nothing, you dipshit.”
Then, Bo reached down and tore the demon core out of the Anubite’s chest.