Jadis jogged down the road at the head of the pack, forming a wedge formation as Eir and the guards followed behind on horseback. Syd took the lead point with her lance in hand along with a bundle of all the weapons they’d salvaged from the wretches they’d slain throughout the day. It was a large bundle of sharp edges, but Syd was in no way encumbered. Jay ran to the right with Aila in the crook of one arm, easily carrying her and her weapon at the same time. Dys ran on the left, having more difficulty with her own burden.
While the weight of the massive shield was no trouble for her, the device was incredibly unwieldly. Since it was so tall and because of the way the handles were positioned, it couldn’t easily be turned on its side and carried like a smaller shield. Dys was forced to take the shield off and carry it like a briefcase. Even then it was a challenge since its great length would occasionally cause it to bounce against the terrain, throwing off her balance.
She was still able to keep to a good jog, though, her pace fast enough to keep the horses at a gallop. Jadis had been surprised at first when the horses had kept up with her speed for long stretches. She knew she was running at a high speed and that she could keep that speed for a long time, longer than an average horse should be able to run all out for.
It turned out that Vraekae had authorized some high-quality gear to the guards and their mounts. The horses were equipped with enchanted barding and horseshoes that boosted their speed and endurance. Mundane animals like horses didn’t have levels or magic, but they could still be affected by the magical items enchanters could craft.
Ealdread hadn’t revealed what kind of enchanted equipment he and the other guards had been issued, but Jadis got the feeling they were sporting weapons and armor the typical guards didn’t receive in normal duty. She had to wonder just how much of a boost enchanted equipment could give. And how expensive it was.
As they ran with the wind whipping through their hair, the sound of the nine horses’ hoofbeats echoing in the valleys the road took them through, Jadis couldn’t hear much of anything until Aila leaned in and half-shouted into her ear.
“Do you hear that?” Aila asked, voice raised. “Sounds like shouting!”
Jadis didn’t, but she slowed, forcing the horses behind her to slow as well, lessening the beat of hooves and clang of armor.
At first, she heard nothing. Then, as one of the guards called out to ask what was wrong, she heard it. A distant scream, inhuman and beastlike. It was quickly cut off, but it had been unmistakable.
The guards must have heard it too as all of them tensed, straightening in their saddles, heads on swivels.
“What was that? Is someone in danger?” Eir called out, fearful concern evident in her voice.
Jadis shook her head, uncertain of the source. As she opened her mouth to speak, another scream echoed distantly, this one an obvious cry of pain from a man.
“That came from up ahead!” Aila shouted, pointing further down the westward running road.
The guards all looked expectantly at Jadis. They were there to guard her, first and foremost. It was clear in their eyes that they wanted to investigate the screams, the possibility of some number of citizens of the empire being in danger high. But they wouldn’t leave Jadis’ side no matter what she did. If she chose to avoid the danger and go wide around it, they’d follow.
Like she’d do that.
“Fucking magistrate might have a point,” Jay growled, tightening her grip on both mallet and Aila.
“Pick up the pace!” Dys shouted as all three of her and Aila shot forward in a dead sprint, heading straight for the source of the screams.
The further she ran the louder and more frequently the screams came until, rounding a blind bend in the road, Jadis was greeted with the source.
The slowly setting sun painted the road in long shadows, dazzling Jadis’ eyes and playing tricks with her perception, but there ahead by some two hundred yards was scene of bloody battle. A caravan of wagons was beset by unknown monsters.
There were six wagons in the caravan, each one a large, fully covered vehicle being pulled by a couple of aurochs. The lead wagon had been overturned, the aurochs on the ground in pools of blood. The rest of the wagons were in disarray, caught up against each other, some half turned in the road, blocking the others and unable to go forward or back. Aside from the drivers, there were guards, at least ten, some on horseback, but it was hard to tell for sure how many there were as they were caught up in a flurry of combat.
Dozens of small, spiked creatures were leaping about the wagons, pouncing on the guards and their horses, latching onto the wagons and the bellowing aurochs that pulled them. Each one looked to be no bigger than a medium-sized dog, but there were so many Jadis couldn’t even begin to count them as they swarmed the caravan. Their details were hard to make out, but she could see that they had round bodies with long, snake-like limbs.
“Any magic recovered?” Jay asked Aila, her pace only slowing for a moment as she took in the sight.
“Enough for two spike traps,” Aila said, tone deadly calm.
“Save them for if you need them,” Jay instructed as they headed into the fray.
Before they quite reached the embattled caravan, Syd tossed her bundle of looted weapons down on the ground. Dys came to a stop where the bundle landed and ripped a few spears from the collection and jabbed them into the ground, using them as support struts to lean her huge shield on. Jay dropped Aila off behind the shield with a brief word.
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“Stay behind the shield with Eir!”
Aila didn’t argue, leaping down from Jay’s arms with catlike grace, kneeling down to pull an axe from the bundle.
While Jay and Dys were delayed for a moment, Syd had already charged ahead. Drawing closer to the battle, she had a much better idea of what kind of creatures the caravan guards were dealing with.
The monsters were like mobile briar bushes, compacted into razor-spiked balls of arboreal fury. Thick vines extended from their beachball-sized bodies, grasping and pulling at anything within range. There were rosebush thorns across every inch of the tangled plant structure that made up the central mass of the creatures, but larger spikes at least as long as steak knives also sprouted randomly from the main body. With sudden bouts of spastic energy the spike balls would curl their vines into springs and launch themselves into the air, crashing into wagons, aurochs, guards, or each other.
As Syd neared, one of the spike monsters suddenly hurled itself towards her. The attack was difficult to predict, the lack of any definably head or sensory organs made it impossible to know ahead of time that the creature had targeted her for its pounce.
Ducking to the side, the spike bush flew past her head but not without drawing blood. One lashing vine limb whipped out and cut across the side of her face, leaving a trail of scratches on her cheek and temple that missed her eye by mere inches.
“Fucking evil chia pets!” Syd shouted in a rage, sweeping her lance in front of her.
The bladed tip of the weapon slashed through the vines and bodies easily, though several of the spike monsters simply rolled or leapt out of the way, glancing off the attack. One, however, was caught full on by the low sweep and was bisected, a dark splatter of demonic blood pouring out from the two halves.
Congratulations!
Bramble Fiend Defeated.
Bonus Experience Points Awarded
for Defeating a Demon Spawn of Samleos.
“Demons confirmed,” Jay growled as she joined Syd, Dys right behind her.
Jay and Dys immediately began swinging their mallet and maul like golf clubs, knocking the round plant demons away from the surrounded wagons. Attacking the much smaller bramble fiends was awkward. They were so low to the ground for her that even with the reach her weapons afforded, her bodies had to stoop to hit the demons properly.
Syd pushed forward as Jay and Dys covered her to either side, knocking the leaping demons back as she worked to clear them off of the wagons and relieve the overwhelmed guards. Syd jabbed forward with her lance as she neared one guard trying to protect a wagon driver that was lying on the ground and clutching his arm, blood pouring out of a hole in his shoulder.
A bramble fiend was stuck to the guard’s shield, spikes buried in the round wooden device, long vine tendrils wrapping up and around his arm. The shield was weighing him down with the demon latched on but he couldn’t drop it with the vines tangled around his armored left arm. Nor did he have time to chop the demon off with his sword as he struggled to keep more of the demons from leaping onto the wounded driver.
One demon leapt through the air, aimed at the guard’s head. Before it could connect, Syd pierced it midair with her lance, catching the writhing plant demon. With a powerful flick of the steel weapon, she launched the fiend far and away, the thorny ball arching out into the distance only to impact a valley cliff face with a faintly audible splat.
The guard she’d saved didn’t have the time or breath to thank her, his eyes growing wide as he looked up at his pale savior for only a moment before he turned to chopping the demon latched to his shield off of him.
That was fine by Jadis. She didn’t have time to talk either.
Doing her best to clear space, Jadis focused on protecting the guards and drivers that were nearest to her. There was nothing she could do about the people towards the front of the caravan, not without leaving the injured in the back to their own fate. Fortunately, Jadis could hear her guard escort rapidly approaching, charging in on horseback.
When she looked back to check on their progress, however, she was surprised to see the guards pulling up short, right next to where Aila was sheltered behind her propped-up shield. The guards dismounted before advancing, shields at the fore and spears at the ready. They ran in as fast as they could but were slowed by the dismount.
It only took one look around the wagons for Jadis to realize why they hadn’t ridden their mounts into the fray. Looking at the two aurochs hitched to the rear wagon, Jadis saw half a dozen of the bramble fiends latched onto the poor creatures. Thorny vines constricted and immobilized their legs, pressing their spiked bodies hard against exposed flesh. One of the fiends was wrapped around an auroch’s neck, squeezing like a constrictor, its spikes and vines biting deeply into the beast and draining it of blood.
A man let out a strangled scream ahead of her. Two fiends were latched onto him, one around his legs, the other on his back. Spiked vines were enveloping his helmeted head, seeking openings to crawl into and dig into his vulnerable weak spots.
Jadis tried to push towards him, Syd acting as a spearhead, but as she widened the gap between her selves several of the demons leapt upon Syd. One bound itself to her left leg, digging into wherever it could, trying to trip her. A second landed on her lower back, pressing its spikes as hard as it could into whatever part it could reach.
Syd found it was no easy task to get the fiends off once they were on her. Their spikes bit into her hands when she grabbed at them and she couldn’t leverage her lance to slash at something pressed so up close against her body. Jay and Dys were too far back to help, caught up in their own individual struggles with the insidious demons to keep them from wrapping onto limbs or leaping onto the injured driver. As Syd wrestled the point of her lance into the demon constricting her leg, a third launched through the air, aiming for her chest. With her lance out of position and unprepared, she had no chance of intercepting the attacking fiend.
Before Syd could attempt to dodge out of the way, an arrow zipped through the air and caught the fiend mid-leap, puncturing it from behind. The demon clunked against Syd’s armored chest heavily, dropping to the ground without latching on, dead from the single shot.
Syd whipped her eyes up to where the arrow had come from.
Standing on top of one of the wagons was a feral-looking woman with a longbow. Large black horns swept backwards from her forehead, almost distracting Jadis from the woman’s bright green eyes, slit like a cat’s eyes, staring right into hers.
“What are you waiting for you big dumb bitch?” She yelled over the sounds of battle. “Keep killing the spiked shit-berries!”
Snarling, Syd ignored the pain and grabbed hold of the vines wrapped around her waist, tearing the bramble fiend loose in a display of raw strength. Blood dripped from her fingers as the thorns dug into her hand, but she ripped the strangling demon off of her. Rearing her arm back, she hurled the writhing fiend forward, splattering it against the wooden side of the wagon the horned woman was perched on.
“Fuck yeah!” The archer yelled, punctuating her curse by putting an arrow into the demon that was trying to strangle the guard between her and Syd. “Show them who’s the real monster, whitey!”
“I think I like her,” Syd growled, grasping her lance with a blood-soaked hand.
She decided she’d have to say hello later. But first, she had some demons to slay.