Chapter 10

Walking towards the incoming horde of humans, he looked at the two giants protecting the area with their tower shields, and ordered them to guard his flank. Picking up speed, he rushed into the cavalry formation. Taking his poleaxe, he envisioned the axe head, hammer, and spear, growing bigger, and heavier, as he approached the front.

The weapon responded, with the axe head growing around twice as long, the hammer booming, and doubling it's width, and the top transforming into a massive spear head. The whole weapon was definitely top heavy now, easily weighing close to two tons.

Taking the poleaxe to the front of the cavalry line, he braced his footing. With his boots digging into the ground, he swung the hammer. BOOM! The cavalry rushing towards him were smashed apart by the massive war hammer, and sent flying into the back of their formation. Due to the spacing between the riders, it felt easier than he imagined it would have been. However, looking at his armor he found multiple spear tips sticking into his plate armor, along with dings, and a lot of blood splatter.

From his perspective he's wearing normal armor, but from a human perspective, the steel plate that he wears is already around 4 to 5 inches thick, and even thicker in some regions. This was not even including the equally thick chainmail and gambeson that he wears. "HAHAHAHAHA!" "I’m basically invincible in this battlefield!!"

Rushing through the cavalry, and slamming the riders with his weapon, he felt like a war god. Bang, bang, bang, bang! Lifting his poleaxe, he slashed a cavalryman sprinting towards him with a downward swing of the axe, slicing him in half, and crushing his horse. After another three kept charging, he flipped the weapon, and side swept the enemy, having blown them into the back lines of the charge with his hammer.

Blood fell on his armor like rain, making it look like he had just crawled out from hell, and was now wearing a coat of deep, red blood. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! He continued to destroy every enemy he could see until, slam! He was suddenly, tossed to the ground, crushing horses and their riders as he fell.

The ground around him has become a pit of red mud from the blood and guts that have been spilled here. Wrestling to get to his feet, multiple knights jumped onto him, pulling out their swords and trying to find any gap they could in the armor to stab into him. Three of four were racing towards his helmet and face.

Quickly, he grabbed the four going for his visor. Grabbing the lower halves of the four with his right hand, and the upper part of the four with my left, he twisted and pulled, until they popped, like a blood sausage. Seeing they had perished, he quickly tossed their remains aside.

Suddenly, he felt a burning pain on his side as he looked down and discovered a siege bolt piercing his armor. "Damn, I got carried away!" "I should have known there were still things that could hurt me." "I wonder how deep it is." "Bastard!!" Looking at his side, another knight still clinging onto him figured it was a good idea to follow an already existing wound, and stabbed into the slot already pierced through.

Fortunately, even with the easy entrance, it seems his sword couldn't get all the way through the same spot the bolt pierced. Looking down, he smashed the humans head against his own armor as it popped like a grape. Grabbing ahold of the bolt, he pulled it out, and was surprised to not feel much pain. Only the tip had some blood on it, and from the looks of it, didn’t break the underlying chain mail, but he was fairly certain it broke some of his ribs.

Now officially angered, he looked for the ballistae that shot him, and rushed towards it. Bang! Turning towards the ballista’s, he finally saw what he had been waiting for. The door to the wall had begun to open, and a massive giant, riding a slepneir, came crashing through the gate! BOOM! The slepneir smashed the gate open as it forced its way through, to the battlefield, revealing a massive red headed, beer guzzling strongman at the front. "Father!" With a stout beer in one hand, and a massive axe in the other, the mad giant shouted! " HAHA!" "Play time is over!!" "Welcome to your doom!"

Looking around the field, anom watched the human cavalry charging towards him and the giants that helped open the gate. Sounding his own formation horn, close to 50 slepneirs lined up, after trampling the gate down, following argath. Chugging the last of the ale, and tossing the cup, Argath readied his weapons, shouting. "Let’s show these bastards who they screwed with lads!" "AHAHAHAH!"

Blowing the charge horn, the eight legged massive horses began to charge forward. They charged in pairs, with massive chain nets being dragged in between them. Charging forward, they were able to scoop up the cavalrymen and their mounts fairly easily. Once the nets were too full to catch more, they were dragged out the back of the fallen gate, to other giants that would seal up the chain prisons with clamps. They would then pummel any soldiers still not unconscious or dead.

Seeing that the cavalry had taken care of the immediate threat, anom looked for the ballistae crew that shot him, and quickly bolted towards them. Jumping up, he grabbed the top of the wall, and pulled himself up the rampart. He felt like he was balancing on a skinny broken fence top as he grabbed the ballistae, and pulled it out, smashing it back down on the crew that was manning it. "Bastards!" Jumping down the fort wall he whistled for frostfire to come down.

Waiting until frostfire returned he quickly jumped to the side, and narrowly avoided another magical mace to the side of his head, from that same bastard and his griffon. "Bastard!" Running towards the fleeing commander, he swung his hammer down towards him, as his surroundings solidified into a magical force field ball. Crack! Smashing downwards at the force field, the commander and his mount were smashed into the ground. Though, neither one of them seemed injured. "Annoying!" "Why is this bastard still targeting me when it’s obvious my father is doing much more damage as a commander?"

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Commander Gaven shouted. "Damn it!" "This whole battle is turning for the worst!" "I can’t just retreat and save my own skin." "I must get some kind of achievement before I can run away!" Looking at the giant that had just sent him and his mount flying together to the ground, he quickly steadied his heart, and prepared to attack again. "I will at least kill this big bastard!" "If it weren’t for you, we could have held on and kept the gate closed, but you let them open it, and allowed the rest of you barbarians to smash down the weakened gate, entering the fort and overrunning us."

The commander coaxed his griffon mount, Julius, to rise, as he took out a small red potion from his pouch. “If this doesn’t doesn’t work then we will run boy”. Patting his mount, he pulled the reigns up, as he lunged towards Anom. As soon as they were in striking distance, he released the red potion, tossing it as hard as he could towards his helmet. Kaboom!! Red light, mist, fire, and electricity crackled as the potion exploded on his steel helmet.

Pushed back, the explosion brought him to his knees. Once the dust settled, the giants helmet had a big portion of the left cheek and bottom of the helmet blown, and melted away. Bright red blood was pouring, from the giant’s ears, nose, and face. "No way!" "He survived that?" "Those are meant to fight against ancient dragons." "Each one of them cost more than most people will ever make in their lifetime." "How is this possible?" "No, I must get away!"

Roar!! Screaming in pure rage, anom's eyes turned red, as he stared at the bastard, and his griffin. Reaching up, to his now ruined helmet, he ripped it off, as he could feel the cool air rush over his skin. He had a massive gash under his left cheek, and was bleeding from his ears and nose. When the potion detonated, it popped his blood vessels in his eyes which were now weeping blood. Anger was all he could feel, as he glared at the enemy in front of him.

Boom!! Before the commander could flee, he swung his axe at him, slamming him back to the ground. Crack! Afraid he would slip away again, anom took his spiked steel boot and stomped down on him, as hard as he could. Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! After stomping on him multiple times, his shield seemed to be weakening. Looking at the fading shield, he looked directly at the commander and raised his poleaxe, one last time, smashing the enemy with his hammer face, as he heard the shattering, and then crunch of him, and his mount. "Noooo!" Looking at his hammer, the rider was gone, and the griffon was smashed in half. "Finally, tough little bastard." "Feeling something landing near him, he looked to his side as frostfire just landed. "Perfect!" "Let’s go get our high necks back."

Jumping on frostfires back they began to fly towards the back. All throughout the cave he could see packs of griffons fighting lone rocs as their giant riders took them out, one at a time. However, looking towards the ground he was able to see some of the smaller rocs have been downed, and even a few, solitary, fallen giants. Despite this, the difference in death was astronomical. The griffon and soldier deaths stacked up like a mountain. However, out of the war guard cavalry, I can only see injured, and dismounted, slepneirs.

Lowering his head, he began to talk to frostfire and asked him, “Have you found out where they are keeping the herd yet?” responding to him, frostfire replied. "Yes, I can smell them further towards the back." "The cave starts to narrow in and makes it harder for anything to fly in like me or the rocs." "As soon as you were ready, your mother asked us to follow."

Looking up he could see his mother riding lady as she motioned to follow. Following her towards the back of the cave we flew three fourths of a mile in, the cave began to narrow. The cave continued to shrink in on itself, until eventually, it was too dangerous to fly around comfortably.

Landing in the cave, his mother, ten flyers, and him, dismounted. They then began walking towards the back of the massive cave. Walking next to her son, saram spoke up. "The cave narrows in like this but after a quarter mile or so it opens back up into a massive area."

Just hearing of this new information Anom replied. "How do you know that?" With a smile creeping onto her face, Saram responded. "HA, little one, your mother still has her bag of tricks." "I have more than just brute strength." "As you age you will realize how important magic is." "Spells like divination for example." "If you would have studied more I doubt you would have gotten that gash under your eye."

Begrudgingly, Anom replied. "Damn, she’s right." "I have been depending on my body size and strength thinking it would be enough and I only learned the basic spells." "When I return I need to find a good magic teacher." "Maybe I can find a human one, and just snatch him/her from their house." "Free five finger discount teacher hehehe."

The cave continued until the walls began to no longer resemble a cave, but began to resemble a massive man made hallway. The crude stone turned into carved pillars and archways with carved decorations and even some small doors leading to who knows where began to appear. Sweree! Walking forward we began to hear the deep thick whistling of the high neck males when they would protect their females from predators.

Quickly picking up their pace, the massive hallway gave way to a gigantic cavern. The cavern was big enough to fit a city and even had ancient dwellings and houses. The houses have been destroyed and stomped flat, but from the caverns architecture, it was pretty apparent that this was once a thriving city.

The remnants of an aqueduct can be seen, chiseled from the walls and flowing down into pools where drinking water comes out from. There were many smaller doors leading to different places, and a few massive and medium archways as well. Those most likely lead to the other parts of the city, and the medium paths most likely lead to neighborhood’s, or parks, or smaller work districts. Walking in the massive cavern, they quickly noticed the herd of high necks. However, it was apparent they took a steep hit to their numbers. Looking at the remaining high necks the herd had been cut by almost a quarter.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With his temperature rising, Anom yelled. "Bastards!!" "They weren’t even planning to use them for the long run." "They were just going to devour them like locusts and continue on until they found another field to strip bare!" Marching forward, the herd soon discovered the giants, and the male bull rushed the herd towards them, knowing where they would be safest.

Sighing in frustration, Saram spoke up. "They must be truly frightened, they know that we protect them 80% of the time and only take a kill when food is needed." "We always treat these animals as kings and have made sure their lives are good. It seems they remember that." As the herd began to move out with them, they saw a group of human carriages, loaded to the top with high neck meat, sitting next to a pile of high neck carcasses." "Anger overflowed, as anom looked for the humans responsible." "Forget it Anom, they have already run away." "We won't be able to catch them unless we searched through the entire labyrinth."

Reluctantly, anom agreed. "Fine, the important part is to get the herd back anyway. Even if they have been injured, if we work hard enough I’m sure we can find a way to make up for their missing numbers. Walking towards the carriages I pulled out my poleaxe and crushed the carriages to dust with it." Walking, they rounded up the herd. Pushing them down the cavern to go outside, they lead them down the following corridor. Hurrying along, they began to jog as the herd picked up speed.

As they raced out of the cavern, they saw a human knight running out of a massive archway, on the left side of the path. The archway was previously invisible, being carved inside of a non facing section of the cavern. It was carved into a niche on the right hand side of the wall and the only thing that could be seen coming in, was a small door. However, going out they could see the massive archway. The man coming out, seemed to be scared, and running for his life. Out of the pitch black doorway, a fire red whip was cracked, quickly wrapping around the man’s legs, and ripping the knight back into the pitch black hallway. "AAAHHH!! "

A sickening crunch was heard and then the sound, like a bucket of water spilling on the ground, followed. The archway then began to smolder and smoke. A massive twenty one foot tall creature, shrouded in black mist and shadow, stepped out of the door.

The creature had two massive side swept dragon horns. Standing on two hooves, its skin looked to be a molten red from the pieces that could be seen apart from the constant surroundings of smoke, fire, shadow and mist. The creature was holding a whip in one hand and a long sword in the other. Walking towards the group anom noticed two massive wings though the smoke and he could not understand how a creature like this could possibly fly. A creature straight from hell. "A demon."

Staring nervously at the creature, Saram spoke up. “It’s a Balrog! I have heard of them but this is the first time I have seen one.” This was the first time anom had a humanoid enemy bigger than he was. Looking at anom, the creature let out a massive roar, loud, and frightening enough to stop the escaping herd in its tracks. Getting ready to fight this terrifying monstrosity, anom walked towards the enemy, only to be overtaken by his mother’s bodyguards Val, and Brim.

Val and Brim were wearing studded leather armor vests with bracers, and a half Viking style helmet. They had chain mail flowing down the back of the neck, and carried big round shields with an axes. On their backs, they also had their bows, but at the moment, they could not use them from the lack of room.

Charging the beast first, Brim rushed forward, attempting to bash the enemy with the shield. Boom! The shield smashed into the fiend, but the massive creature did not give way at all. Punching up with his left arm, the enemy pushed the shield to the side and slashed with his flaming sword. Slice, splash, the sound of blood hitting the floor could be heard as the sizzling from the sword burning the blood was continuously evaporating. "SSSSSSS" Terrified of Brims fatal wounds Val shouted. "Brother!! You bastard!"

Rushing forward, Val threw her shield at the balrogs face, creating an opening, from a risky move. Taking advantage of the split second from the shield stunning the fiend, she ran forward and slammed her axe down into the fiend’s chest. Crack! Roar!! Fire and smoke begin to grow like mad as the creature was infuriated.

Looking at the one responsible for this new injury, the creature extended both arms and grabbed the giant into a bear hug. Fwoosh! The creature’s flames become twice as bright, and double the heat, as Val began to scream in pain from the fire. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! A guttural and painful scream, came from the woman, as the fire grew hotter and hotter. Knowing this was going to be a long and bitter fight, anom turned towards his mother.

Terrified at the suddenly demise of her bodyguards, Saram suggested. "Let’s take him together." Steadfast, Anom responded. "No. I will hold this bastard off. You need to take the herd and get everyone out of here. The entire tribe is counting on us and the longer we stay here the more likely something could go bad, or new enemies could appear. Looking at frostfire behind him, anom said. “You need to follow my mother. Protect her and my family. Help them escape.”"

Forever irritated at the annoying humans, Frostfire responded. "Fine but you owe me a favor, and I expect to be paid back in full. If you die I expect your mother and father, or the tribe to return it to me. Annoyed, Anom agreed. "Bastard, fine, whatever, I’m not going to die anyways so what’s a favor."

Heading towards the balrog, he could see val was already dead, as the remains of her brother were smoldering like a piece of charcoal. Bright red lines ran throughout the corpse, like the balrog itself. Continuing to squeeze the previous enemy, Vals remains began to crumble, in the bear hug of the monster. Falling like crumbling, used pieces of coal. The axe wound was still visible, and gushing dark red blood, but the axe itself had been burnt away, melted from the flames. Making a mad sprint to the balrog, before it noticed him, he rushed to him, and tackled the creature, back through the door it came from. Boom!

Being tackled back 10 to 15 meters, the creatures back slammed on an extraordinarily long stone stair case. However, this was actually to anom's advantage, in as soon as the creature attempted to get up, he was out of balance. This made it exceptionally easy to attack. Except his weapon was too big. He couldn't swing it while he was wrestling with the monster.

Trying to concentrate he could feel his weapon responding, and shrinking into a much smaller spiked mace. As the weapon was shrinking, he could almost see some fear in the creatures eyes. Straddling the beast with his legs, he sat up and began to swing the much smaller mace at the beast, as the balrog attempted to wrestle anom. Boom! Boom!

The creature dropped his whip and sword, not wanting to continue taking anom's hits, and began to try and wrestle him off. Bang, Bang, Bang, Swing after swing the mace slammed into the head of the creature. Every time sparks flew from the creatures horns protecting him almost like a natural helmet. Bang, Crack! The left horn cracked at the base and began to pour out scalding hot glowing blood. Roar!!

The Balrog was furious and in deep pain, but couldn’t do anything as it was pinned. Despite this anom soon hear a crack, and then felt something hit the back of his head, tossing him over the creature and further down the stairs.

Looking back to figure out what had just hit him in the head, he could see the creature getting up, and right where his head was previously, was a thick, whip like tail with a spear tipped head. "Tricky bastard!" Looking down at his armor around my arms and hands, he was also shocked to see deep grooves cut into the steel. If it was much worse, he would have cut through his armor completely, and cut off a limb!

Looking at the monsters hands, it was then he noticed, he had exceptionally large and sharp claws. They were even harder than steel. "What the hell." "This guy is nasty." He could see the creature snarling at him, furious at his broken horn on the floor. Suddenly the broken horn began to radiate more heat than before.

The monster suddenly picked up his flaming sword, as I returned my weapon into a poleaxe with a smaller grip. Making it shorter, and easier to use in the smaller environment. Coming up to me with his sword, he swung with a diagonal cut, at which point anom caught his sword with his axe bottom, and twisted his body around, grabbing his sword arm at the same time and tossing the bastard over his shoulder down the stairs. Whoosh, Boom! Roar! The balrog roared in pain again, as it jumped back to its feet. Once again below me.

Using the time the enemy took to get up and back into his guard, anom switched to his hammer side, and swung a two handed heavy downwards swing, before the balrog was completely up. Truthfully, he hoped he wouldn’t get up and then anom could just crush him as he’s down, but he doubted that was going to happen. Putting his full weight Into the strike, he could see the creatures eyes, staring right at him, while he was about to kill it. Right at the last second, the creature pulled out his broken horn, and using his full strength, stabbed him into the stomach, piercing straight through his armor like butter and sticking through his stomach, into his chest and through his ribs!

Holding back coughing up blood, and without fearing death, anom mind was racing as he thought, "This bastard wants to trade a blow for a blow. Is he stupid? Does he want us both to die? So, ultimately it’s coming down to who can hit harder and break through the other? Ok, fine. I have never been afraid of a contest of strength." Pop! Creeeeeeeek! Boom! Smashing the balrogs head with his poleaxe was exceptionally risky.

As soon as his weapon connected, the balrog twisted his head, redirecting the blow to his remaining horn, which snapped in half almost immediately. Now only half of the horn is left growing at the base. As the hit slammed in, the balrogs head was pushed downwards. The back of its horn absorbed a lot of the blow like a spring but ultimately overloaded and snapped. The rest slammed into the back of its head and slammed its head into the stone stairs. However, anom was not left unscathed either. Looking down, he could see the horn easily penetrated his armor.

It punched through armor, chainmail, and even the gambeson. Ultimately stabbing through his stomach and crushing through his previously broken, lower ribs and into his lower chest. If it entered any farther he would have been stabbed through his heart. Grabbing the horn, he pulled it out, as a waterfall of blood and intestines begin to flow outside of hit body. "Damn that hurts!"

Looking down to see if the creature was dead if kick it a few times, then begin to focus on healing his torn out stomach. While healing myself he began to feel like he was being watched so he quickly opened my eyes, only to be standing, eye to pitch black soulless eye, with a very pissed off balrog.

Opening his arms, he pulled him into a bear hug before he had time to react. He could feel the heat accumulating from red to orange to blue, to green, and ultimately white! While the flame was surrounding him and began to burn through his armor, the gambeson caught on fire underneath all the metals, producing a thick cloud of pitch black.

After the Gambeson was burnt, the chainmail began to melt. Followed by the chainmail, and the steel plate armor that began to melt. However, the strangest part was that no matter how hot the flames grew, anom felt no pain. Looking towards his skin he could see his skin beginning to glow a dull red, then brighter and brighter, almost as bright as the white flame from the fiend. Pushing out this much energy must have been exhausting though as after a few minutes he began to scramble for air and his body looked much weaker.

Watching the fiend exhaust itself trying to kill him, he ratcheted his head back and, slam! He began to head-butt the bastard. Bang, Bang, Bang, head butt after head-butt smashed into him, until he collapsed, dead on the floor. Taking his poleaxe, he used the axe head and sliced off his head. Preventing any future surprises.

Exhausted, and standing in the middle of his melted armor , he was in agony with multiple broken bones, and stab wounds. He sat down, and began to try and push his guts back into his stomach and heal his wounds. At least enough to go to the healer back in the village or the one who came with us.

Blood pooling around him, his whole body was in pain. He quickly healed himself the best he could and took whatever he thought was valuable from the fiend. He especially took care to grab the flaming weapons and horns. Looking through what he had on him was pretty disappointing though. He did get ahold of the terrifyingly powerful creature’s core after he opened up his skull though.

The rest looked pretty useless though, except maybe the skin and wings, but he couldn't exactly run away, carrying a massive set of demon wings and skin. Thinking about the damage the tail did to him, he sliced that off and rolled it up to make into a whip later. He also took his hooves and claws. Maybe he could find a good forge master to make something from them.

Walking back up the stairs he grabbed the only set of clothing around from his mother’s slain bodyguard, Brim, and quickly put them on, rushing towards the exit after thanking them for their sacrifices. He quickly lit their corpse on fire so the enemy could not desecrate them, or use them for alchemy or weapons like the balrog he had just defeated. This was taught to all giants to follow in battle. To respect the dead when they cannot be buried properly. Running out of the massive hall, he was soon back at the beginning of the cave.

Corpses were everywhere. Humans and horses were piled up in massive corpse pyramids. The remains of griffons can be seen everywhere as well. They coated the ground like an infestation. Every great while, he could see a young, or small roc, which looked like a legendary, fallen creature, surrounded by the corpses of griffins, cavalry, and heavy infantry guards.

Most were just runts, or were too young, and shouldn’t have been in the battle to begin with, but somehow snuck in. The few giants that he did see fallen on the field, seemed to have been hit with siege arrows, and then finished off with as many bodies that they could throw at them as possible. Looking at these giants made him sad, but also made him proud to see the strength of will of his people. He continued to look around, while lighting his people who have fallen alight, and searching for a means of transportation.