The mutants fell upon them like a tide. In the darkness, Herman could only make out blurry outlines of malformed men; some limped along through the tunnel, led by base instinct. Others saw fit to scrabble along on all fours, screeching, and some merely shuffled along, drawn like moths to a flame, gibbering and howling all the while. In response, the northman roared a furious bellow in his harsh native tongue, challenging the mutants to battle.
The butcher’s work began an instant after Ingvar’s war-cry. The tunnels were filled with howls and screams as the cultists lashed out against the vile horde. The sheening blade of Herman’s sword slashed open what he assumed to be the neck (or at least, one of) of a mutant, and he felt hot blood spray across his face in the dark followed by a wheeze and a dull thud. To his left, Ingvar was a great blur, knocking a three-legged mutant down with the pommel of his axe then swinging down to cleave open his chest with a single crushing strike.
A crawler leapt suddenly from the darkness at the sellsword, and he fell into a desperate scramble. If the creature was once a man, it had undergone a dark and terrible metamorphosis. Its limbs were twisted, and it loped desperately at Herman with sharp claws and fangs. The two danced in the darkness, scrambling as the mercenary fell back onto pure instinct to win. The sharp claws of the monster ripped into Herman’s arm, sending jolts of pain through his wrist. He responded with a desperate stab, which whether by skill or dumb luck managed to pierce one of the mutant’s claws. As the creature reeled back hissing, the sellsword took his chance, leaping and swinging his sword down.
The crawler let out a desperate cry as the blade struck home, stabbing right into the top of his skull and killing him. Herman had just enough time to pull it out before he was suddenly knocked off his feet by the most powerful force he had felt in his life.
The creature that leered over Herman simply could not have been human. To suggest it was once mortal was a jest told only by the gravest of fools. The wolfish head leered down at the mercenary, a vertical mouth splitting into a many-fanged grin. Two asymmetrical eyes gloated down at their vulnerable prey, and the mutant’s claw snapped forward to finish the job with what seemed like the vicious talon of some bird of prey.
The sellsword rolled across the floor, just barely dodging a blow that would have killed him. He reached for a sword that was not there, and realised there was only one other option, and that was beyond desperate.
He got to his feet just as the creature rounded on him. Its left hand was a jet-black clawed talon, but its left was relatively human, albeit mangled beyond belief. Too many fingers. Too many joints. The mutant fell upon him in an instant, just in time for Herman to pull the arrow from his quiver.
The creature hurled itself with terrifying speed, and it barrelled towards the sellsword, only to suddenly squeal and reel back in pain, as an arrowhead struck the mutant’s chest.
He pulled another arrow. There was no time to string his bow, and there wasn’t enough room to loose it anyway! Herman charged, roaring madly, the arrow in his hand.
He had aimed for the neck, but his aim wasn’t good enough. The arrow pierced the mutant’s side, and it howled again as another arrowhead embedded itself into its cursed flesh. With a spur of desperate energy, the mutant lashed out with its talon, and suddenly Herman’s vision was a haze of red blood. He remembered being sent across the grimy floor, his head knocking against what he first assumed to be the chamber’s wall, but as he dizzily got up Herman realised that he had been saved from snapping his neck by having his fall softened by a cadaver’s stiffened leg. Herman tried to wipe the blood from his vision, and spent so long doing so he never noticed the mutant behind him, honing in for the kill.
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The talon just barely scraped Herman’s back, the mercenary promptly spun around and quickly scrambled backwards from the mutant’s grip. Suddenly the curseling’s grasping claw stopped still, then fell limp. A spray of blood washed over Herman again as Ingvar’s crude axe chopped the mutant’s head into two ragged halves. The warrior’s booming laugh echoed around the small chamber, followed quickly by the whooping and screaming as the mutant’s began to retreat back into their dark holes.
“Gutless wretches.” Ingvar snarled, his voice filled with venom as the monsters routed.
Slowly, Herman pulled himself up from the ground where he’d slipped. Everything ached. His head was booming, his left eye killed, and even worse, he’d lost his sword. He shot a quick look at the hulking shadow of the northman, who slowly put his axe to ease before turning to the group of cultists that were picking themselves up off the ground.
The mask-wearer was dead. One of the leapers had ripped his throat out and he lay, slumped against the wall in silence. The others seemed ragged and wounded, but living. The young one was shaking on the spot, adrenaline still visibly burning through his veins.
“Ranald’s bones…” He muttered, staring seemingly agasp at the corpses surrounding them. “We’re alive.”
“Of course we live!” Johan said, shrugging casually. “The Gods protect their servants, young Lubin! Thanks to their watchful champion, we have claimed victory over those who would defeat us!”
Herman was, quite frankly, too tired to care for what the cultists went on about. He rose to his feet, and began searching for his sword.
The northman found it first, holding it in a tight-gauntleted grip as he shadowed over the mercenary with his black-iron frame.
“You dropped your sword.” The warrior’s voice dripped with an emotion Herman could only describe as somewhere between derision and disgust. The sellsword met the northman’s crimson gaze, and suddenly he felt himself withering. The looming eyes pierced into him, into his very being, and suddenly the southerner found himself unexpectedly quailing under the vice-grip gaze.
Herman’s hand shook slightly as it stretched out. “I’ll be having that back, thanks.”
A boom emanated from the helmeted visage, which Herman could only ascertain was a laugh.
“You are bold, aren’t you?.”
The sword was dropped onto the floor with a clatter, and with a swiftness that belied his size, Ingvar turned to the huddled cultists.
“We move.” The two simple words were spoken with a boom, and the cultists readied themselves. Ragged, wounded, but living, the Hidden Brethren moved on.