Four Beheadings and a Funeral

by Ugland, Eric

  I stood there on the edge of the wall, looking down at the encroaching mass of monsters, almost in a daze. I could only look on in awe and confusion.

  Thankfully, the big monster’s left head reared back. He took in a massive breath and unleashed a truly staggering cone of fire, sending a searing flame across the ground and cliff face in front of it. Anything remotely combustible ignited, including the smaller furry guys. And once on fire, the furry creatures ran amok with no real sense to where they were going. The raging inferno was unconcerning to the big beast; it just powered through unharmed, and got to the wall without any trouble.

  It paused at the wall, and looked up. Our eyes met, and the creature seemed to grow even angrier at the sight of me. It roared a challenge.

  There was a time I would have roared back, but that just seemed foolish. No way I could match the monster’s volume. Instead, I flipped him the bird. I guess such a sign was universal, because the left head sucked in air, and sent an answer my way in fire.

  A great spray of flames flew up the cliff face. I had to jump backward just to keep my eyebrows.

  The fire and smoke roiled up another fifty or so feet, and I heard a collective gasp from the gathered crowd. The Legion stood up a little straighter. Their commander called out orders, and the Legionnaires began pulling things out of belt pouches and attaching them to their shields.

  One of the Legion leaders, a man that actually had a bit of a beard going on and was built like a linebacker, walked along the wall toward me. He gave me a slight nod as he passed before peeking over the edge.

  “Hrm,” he said softly.

  “Seen this before?” I asked.

  “Negative,” he replied without looking at me. “This looks to be an unpleasant afternoon, however. Thanks for coming to play with us.”

  “Any time,” I said. “Are—”

  “Let’s talk if we survive,” the man said. Finally he looked over at me, giving me a grim sort of smile before heading back to his soldiers.

  “GET ME MY MANCERS!” The leader roared as he got back to the group.

  My first two times on the wall with the Legion, they’d held the middle and directed the other fighters out to either side. This time, the largest grouping was still in the middle, but other Legion spread out to cover the bulk of the wall. They weren’t able to fill it out quite as deep, just two rows. In the middle, where the big baddy was coming, they still had a decent sized cohort. Or two, really.

  And then there was me, in front of the shield wall. Which was just stupid. There was no good reason for me to be in front of the shield wall. It was a much better plan to be behind it. Sure, I wouldn’t be in the middle of the action right away, but if I was out front, it meant they wouldn’t be able to function as a cohesive line. I thought back to some of my instructions with Carpophorus and decided the best thing I could do was to wait behind the line and then step into any gaps that might form.

  So I went and slid between the shields, getting a few nods from the Legionnaires in the process, and took up a position behind the soldiers. I was the only one willing to stand with them. All the rest of the men and women were purely onlookers, weapons firmly put away.

  This was different.

  What the hell was going on with Osterstadt?

  The chilling howls from below brought me back to the present. It was time for action — thinking could wait.

  Time for blood.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  My emotions in the moments before battle had shifted over time. When I first started training in martial arts as a kid, I forced calm on myself. Attempting to rid myself of emotion, to be cold and calculating. But when I grew into a professional fighter, if a criminal one, there was always fear initially. That never went away completely. I did my best to hide it under a variety of illicit substances, but really that just made everything worse. I had some non-fighting years, but those ended quite poorly. And then the fighting took a different turn. I didn’t want to make it through the fights, so my pre-battle rituals were shorter, and the fear was gone. It was just rage, frustration, and hope.

  Now, though, I felt excited. The nerves were still there— I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t that worried it would come to that. And even if it did, I had a pretty good chance of coming back to life. I mean, Mister Paul hadn’t confirmed one way or the other if he’d gotten his groove back. But regardless, fighting was something I was good at, and the chance to do what I was good at made me feel good.

  I gave my sword a few swings with each arm, loosening my shoulders up. The throwing axe went into my left hand. I hefted it and tried to find its balance. I was ready.

  And the fuckers were still climbing.

  I resisted the urge to run through the Legion’s line and peer over the edge, but I couldn’t stand still — the adrenaline was pumping.

  None of the Legion were watching me. They were wholly focused on the expanse in front of them, the sounds of the creatures making basically everyone extremely nervous. I saw at least three of the soldiers vomit. They didn’t step much out of line — just a shift to the side, vomit, then back in position. Part of me wanted to say something, or do something to boost morale. Let these guys know that I had their six. That I wouldn’t let anything happen to them. But that wasn’t my place. I wasn’t a duke anymore; I was just a bodyguard trying to do his duty.

  I wished Bear was around, if only to give me identifications on the creatures I was about to face. Knowing if they had a weakness would be boss, but knowing if they had an immunity would even better. If only magical weapons worked on the furry fuckers, it’d be seriously annoying to beat on them with my steel sword. I bounced on the balls of my feet, trying to keep my mind present.

  Then, boom:

  * * *

  Skuggashud

  Monstrous Humanoid

  Lvl 22

  HP: mild

  MP: none

  Known Weaknesses: None

  Known Immunities: None

  * * *

  I looked around, trying to spot Bear in the crowd. Which I quickly realized was pointless, being that the little brownie would have been invisible. I raised my sword in a salute all the same.

  The skuggashuds ran pell mell toward the line. I swung my sword a time or two, ready to be in the thick of it. And more than a little annoyed I needed to wait.

  There was a great crash as the skuggashuds slammed into the Legion shield wall. One of the sergeants roared out a command, and there was a big push. The second row did some stabbing with their spears. Lots of carnage happened very quickly. I will give it to the Legion — they were incredibly effective. The skuggashuds had basically no chance at getting through the Legion shields.

  The skin beneath their fur was dark as well, but their internals were a brilliant pink. They had mammalian eyes with a vertical slit, but their mouths were more like toothy suckers. Like a lamprey. They had six long fingers on each hand, with an extra digit between where the index finger and thumb would go. And they howled. A lot. The shrill, awful noise emerged from their gross mouths with a startling rhythm.

  For a moment, I thought I’d be completely extraneous, that the Legion would just steamroll over their opponent. But the skuggashuds had numbers on their side. They positively swarmed over the wall, seemingly eager to die on the spears of the Legion. Maybe it’d be a different story if the Legion had more rows of men and women, but there just wasn’t much in the way of backup. As soon as one part of the line faltered, everything started to slip apart.

  And then it happened.

  A man at the front slipped on something, likely the bright pink blood of the skuggashud, but he went down. Hard. And the beasts took immediate advantage of the opening in the line, swarming in.

  Time for me to go to work.

  I charged at the opening, and as I reached my first furry fucker, I sliced across in a big backhand. His head came off cleanly, a spurt of pink blood shooting into the air. He took another few steps forward before running out of
momentum.

  * * *

  GG! You’ve killed a skuggashud (lvl 18 monstrous humanoid).

  You’ve earned 508 xp! What a mighty hero you are.

  * * *

  The notification startled me, and I instantly minimized it. I barely got the sword back around to slice the next skuggashud, going diagonal from hip to shoulder.

  I shot a thrust out to the left, catching one in the middle of his gut, and then I lunged forward, swinging hard, and lopped off another head.

  Fighting monsters is always a little different than fighting people. I’ve noticed that there is a completely different style when your opponent lacks things like a sword. Or a shield. There’s a measure of natural armor, but you almost always have a reach advantage on similarly-sized creatures. As long as I kept my sword moving, the skuggashuds couldn’t get close to me. And they didn’t seem overly strong, didn’t have crazy claws, and their fur didn’t do much to stop steel. They weren’t really much more than an annoyance.

  I took a wide swing that went through three skuggashuds, and ended up in the midst of them. I’d gone past the line. But the Legion needed a minute to get themselves reset, so I couldn’t go back yet. Time to make a statement.

  I cut to the left, sliced to the right, and then the damn sword got stuck in a bone. It was losing its sharpness. I gave up on the sword and chopped into a skull with the axe. Then I grabbed a fur-covered arm, and yanked hard. There was a snap and a scream.

  One of the skuggashuds latched onto my left arm and tried to bite me. He went straight through the shoulder portion of my tabard, but while his teeth grated against the chain maile, they didn’t penetrate.

  I reared back and head-butted him, feeling his skull give before mine. The skuggashud dropped to the ground.

  I saw a particularly large skuggashud pushing toward the reforming line, so I threw the axe hard. It thunked into the back of the big guy’s skull, and his push stopped.

  Weaponless for a moment, I grabbed two hands of a skuggashud to play Montana’s Game of Horrors, and I pulled his arms while I kicked his chest with my boot.

  His arms came off.

  There was a genuine moment of surprise, for both of us. He looked at his arms in my hands, and I looked at the spots where his arms used to attach, blood pumping out.

  He fainted, or died, not really clear. I did my best to see how skuggashud arms worked as clubs.

  Not great.

  But as I laid into the monsters around me, the Legion pushed back. Soon they surrounded and moved past me.

  I like to think I got more than nods that time.

  There was enough time for me to find my sword, retrieve my axe, and drop the arms before the shield wall buckled a second time.

  I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and shook my bloody head before charging once more into the fray.

  Again, I plowed into the shield wall’s hole and cut a bloody swath through the black furred monsters, laying into them with a fury usually reserved for people who’d done something to me personally. I killed them with efficiency and without remorse, more of a massacre than an actual fight, until the Legion managed to reform around me once again.

  Once behind the line, I stood there, blood dripping everywhere, and took stock of the situation. My axe was fine. It as a magical weapon; I was reasonably sure nothing was going to happen to it. The sword, on the other hand, had seen better days. I had been putting the blade through its paces, and there were plenty of nicks on the edge, as well as a few chunks missing. Plus there was a decidedly unorthodox angle to it. I tried to put it back in the sheath, but it wouldn’t go. I chucked it to the side and looked around, trying to see if there was a spare weapon about.

  “Spear?” called out one of the Legion soldiers.

  “If you don’t mind,” I replied.

  She threw the weapon my way, and I grabbed it out of the air.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She nodded and returned to her duty, which seemed to be supplying the Legion boys and girls with anything they might need during the battle. I noticed her belt was heavy with water, and while I was thirsty, I figured I’d leave that to the Legion.

  The skuggashuds weren’t the main course. They were just a shitty appetizer. One I’d tucked into, for sure, so I was covered in gore, and had to pause to wipe the pink blood from my face. Which made me miss having hair. Because at least the hair would keep blood off of my face. And the sweat. But I seemed to have more problems with blood. Which I admit is gross, but hey, truth is truth.

  Finally, the big motherfucker, the two-headed monstrosity who did things like breathe fire and look disgusting, made his appearance. His ginormous hand-paw thing crashed down on the top of the wall. Things rumbled and vibrated. Some of the skuggashuds became skugga-shouldn’ts as they were squished. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of a symbiotic relationship between them and the big fucker. Who got a name as soon as Bear shot her spell off and shared the information with me.

  * * *

  Eborja

  Arane Abomination

  Lvl ???

  HP: ???

  MP: ???

  Known Weaknesses: ???

  * * *

  Well that was certainly a sign we were fucked. If even Bear’s higher-leveled identification spell gave nothing more than a name... shit.

  Actually, shit was a pretty good descriptor of the direction of things.

  The eborja pulled itself up onto the flat of the wall. It towered above, well, everything. Up close, it was even more disturbing and imposing than before. There was something about the sheer size of the thing that just imbued fear and horror. Something that big shouldn’t exist. It should fall apart under its own weight, and yet, not only was it living and breathing, it was moving. Far faster than it had any right to.

  The onlookers and lookie-loos decided they would lookie-loo themselves the fuck out of the fighting area. I had to wonder if the skuggashuds were just trying to get away from the eborja because everything sort of paused as the eborja’s two heads surveyed the scene. It was an eerie quietude where we all —monsters and people alike — waited for the real decision maker to act.

  I didn’t want to see what he was going to do. I really thought about just moseying right off, heading back to Coggeshall and letting the eborja take care of the whole Master problem for me. I had a reasonable level of confidence he’d be able to handle it. Motherfucker looked like he knew how to take care of business. Which made me wonder if I could use that taming stone I had to tame this guy. Having a tame eborja would make me a fucking world power overnight. This was too good a chance to pass up, so I reached into my bag—

  “Fuck.”

  No one bothered to look my way. I wasn’t the only one cursing under his breath.

  The left eborja head — his left, not mine — I decided to call Larry. The right head would be Reggie. Larry LeftHead tried to go farther along the wall, but Reggie Righthead didn’t want to go that way. Reggie saw the gathered Legion, and I guess thought it would make a nice snack. He darted his head down toward the Legion.

  The Legion leader roared out a command. “Testudo!”

  Shields clattered as they came together, forming, in essence, a turtle shell all around them.

  The massive eborja head, leading with its mouth, came down on the testudo formation. Reggie’s stubby teeth scraped against the metal shields and resonated like nails on a chalkboard. I shuddered.

  As soon as Reggie Righthead let up even the slightest, the Legion fought back, stabbing up at him with a multitude of spears.Their testudo turtle suddenly bristled like a dire porcupine.

  Reggie did not like this. A single spearpoint to the snout made him rocket his giant head back up so fast I could hear the wind.

  This got the attention of Larry LeftHead, who looked over to see the bristling spears of the Legion far below.

  Larry roared.

  Reggie roared.

  The Legion reset itself.

  Meanwhile, the sku
ggashuds decided their break was over, and they crashed into the spread-out line of the Legion.

  Larry reared his big ol’ head back, and I could see him sucking in a great gulp of air.

  “Fire!” I yelled.

  “Ignis siquidem legiones!” screamed the Legion leader.

  A man in robes lifted up from the center cohort. He put his arms up.

  Larry unleashed a hellish inferno down on the soldiers. I thought I was going to see the worst barbecue, but instead, the flames licked around what I could only assume was a magical shield. The heat from Larry’s fiery breath was insane, and even though I was about a hundred yards away, I still winced. The soldiers under the magical shield were fine, and as soon as Larry ran out of breath, the shield dropped and the Legion charged forth.

  Unfortunately, there were soldiers who didn’t make it under the shield, and a lot of them got crispy. And even worse: it didn’t seem like any of them died outright, but it was pretty clear many weren’t going to last very long.

  I sprinted toward the downed men and women, hurdling a clutch of groaning half-cooked Legionnaires to land in the path of charging skuggashuds.

  They skidded to a stop, clearly hoping for the quick kill on the injured, and yet here I was, a giant, relative to them, covered in the blood of their brethren.

  This time I yelled a primal, barbaric yawp. And before any response could come from the skuggashud, I was moving, spearpoint first. Stab, twist, wrench.