Sparrow shook his head as a god was dragged through the fire screaming. Sparrow’s control was weakening, more horde were pouring through the edges of the fire. One moved faster than the rest, it sprinted towards the fire, with the flicker lighting up its legs. The muscles in its thighs rippled as it took off from the ground, soaring to the heavens in a gravity-defying leap. It’s sword was raised above its head tip gleaming in the firelight as it bore down on the head of the god of blacksmiths.

An arrow caught it mid-leap and then another, piercing its side in an explosion of blood and pieces of gut. By the time it hit the ground, it was a charred pincushion lying flat on its face.

Sparrow looked for the source of the arrows and found the God of War had turned his collection of archers to provide cover fire for the gods down the hill. But by turning they’d opened up their rear to attacks from the horde swarming up the hill.

Sparrow’s feet sunk deep into the hillside as he called to the Gods that were climbing it, ‘Onward! Onward!’

And the gods ran with him, slicing and dicing and fighting their way up the slope until they reached the archers.

‘Into a ring!’ The God of War called them, ‘Surround us.’

The Blacksmith God hurried to where the archers were being cut to pieces and slugged his giant mallet into the face of a horde, flattening its features and sending it reeling back down the hill. His fellow sword and axe-wielding gods joined him creating a ring around the archers.

But the horde were pouring up the hill like rats from the sewer, they coated it in a swarming mass of limbs and weapons.

‘They want to extinguish us now,’ The God of War shouted to Sparrow, then peeled a spear out of the corpse of one of his fellow gods and hurled it into the swarming mass impaling three horde so their bodies were joined together in a giant kebab.

‘What shall we do Sparrow?’

Sparrow looked around. The horde were pressing in. The ring of strong gods on the outside was starting to fall. The archers and healers on the inside would soon be mopped up.

‘They can’t kill us, right?’

‘No, as long as we have followers we’ll continue to live. But there are worse things than dying. If I were them I’d keep us cut into pieces like barbeque meat while the rest of them finish off our followers.’

Sparrow gritted his teeth and lashed out at a horde that had just detached the head of a baton-carrying god. He used stoneskin to grow a sharp branch along his right arm and stuck it through the face of another horde. He snatched up a sword in his other hand and lashed out, impaling two horde at the same time. But the beasts grabbed his hands even as his swords pushed through their heads. They held onto him as they passed away and that gave their comrades a chance to strike.

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Two horde lept at him pushing swords through his gizzard. Sparrow stumbled back into the arms of another horde that placed its sword to Sparrow’s neck.

‘Not like that.’ The God of war said, panting as he lopped the head off the horde behind Sparrow. The god he pulled Sparrow back into the centre of their mass where the God of Healing placed her hands on his chest and he gasped as his stomach stitched itself back together.

‘I see you’re used to going it alone Sparrow,’ the God of War said, ‘It’s admirable, but a battle like this can’t be won through the force of a single individual. You need to look at what you’ve got, understand it and exploit it to your advantage.’

Sparrow glanced around at the remnants of their army. The god of the blacksmiths was tiring, the mallet hung awkwardly as he swung this way, huffed two deep breaths, then swung the other, Sparrow pointed to him.

The horde were pushing the hammer wielding god back further and further. He was stumbling. His palms were open and bleeding - you’d think a god like that would’ve had callused palms after working the forge for an eternity. And that’s when Sparrow realised, ‘He’s not the god of the blacksmiths.’

The God of War smiled, ‘Then why is he holding a mallet?’

‘Because all warfare is based on deception.’

The God of War pushed his foot into the ground, it squelched in the mud, ‘What did you notice about the terrain we’ve been fighting on?’

‘It’s steep and boggy.’

‘And it's that way because the dirt is still settling Sparrow.’

‘So this isn’t a hill?’

‘That’s right… the god of war grinned, ‘all warfare is based on deception.’

Sparrow looked at the god he’d thought was the God of the Blacksmiths and realised for such a heavyset man he seemed to have no trouble staying on top of the boggy earth. He walked atop it while other gods and the horde floundered in a sea of wasted effort.

The God of War waved a single finger at the God of Blacksmiths and the god brushed the coal from his face and dove into the earth like it was a pool of water.

He emerged next to them and called out, ‘Brace yourselves!’ in a rich, earthy tone.

The ground underneath them rumbled and rattled and Sparrow was thrown sideways, colliding with a flower-wearing, bow-carrying god who gave him a smile and held out a slender hand.

‘You’re going to want to hold onto something,’ she said as thousands of tonnes of earth slipped away from beneath their feet. The earth rolled like a tsunami across the landscape burying and crushing the horde as it went. Most of the army had been rushing up the hill, but a few made it into the water of the lake.

There a god with clothing woven from algae and pondweed floated, her eyes resting just above the surface of the water.

Water lapped around the feet of the horde that were splashing through the lake. The water began to get deeper and deeper and the horde didn’t mind because at least they were out of the way of the landslides. The water tugged at them, at first gently, then more and more urgently, pulling them in currents towards the centre of the lake.

There the horde were hurtled against eachother in a swirling mass of limbs and collisions they blacked out, they came to, they bled, and then they saw the kraken.

It descended through the mass of bodies and water, rays of sunlight lit its firey eyes the size of horses, swept its pulsing tentacles as it seized bodies and tore them in two, and finally illuminated Princess Jade, Piggy, Rhino-xi and the little girl they had rescued clinging to the kraken’s skull with a ball of air clustered around her head.