“Aaaaaaah!” the children screamed.
“Aaaaaaah!” Thistle screamed right along with them because this was a damned good moment to scream. In the back of his mind, where his logic lived, an epiphany struck as he finally realized why the Scuttles had spread out in such a manner.
They were a detection system to find the ground demon more prey.
Eric was moved the least of the four by the explosion, reflexively diving to the ground moments after having been launched in the air. As a result, he got an upfront seat for the horror that was the giant ground demon. After the first casualty, archers and knife-throwers let loose volleys of attacks, all of which bounced off the interlocking scales of the demon, leaving scarcely a scratch. The next volley was one of magic, a rainbow of different spells bouncing off its flesh. One or two seemed to wound it slightly, but the demon paid them almost no mind at all.
Instead, it focused on eating more people. It would smash into stands intermittently, tearing away sections of wood and gobbling the people who had been standing there moments prior. Occasionally, an adventurer using a melee weapon would draw too close to it and be speared by one of its endless legs, but these occasions scarcely grabbed more than a few seconds of its attention.
A dull ache in his hand drew Eric out of the trance he’d fallen into while watching this vast monster. It took him a moment to realize he’d been gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly it caused the metal to dig into his palm. He wanted to do more than grip his weapon; he wanted to hurt this demon that was killing so freely. Eric licked his lips and watched the waving legs swing through the air. Maybe, just maybe, he was fast enough. Maybe he could get in close enough to swing his sword and take off some of those legs. If he was lucky, he might even get a strike in on its side.
Eric took a tentative step forward and immediately felt a hand close on his arm.
“Give it a moment,” said a thick voice to his side. It was one of the armored people he’d watched so attentively, the dwarf with the massive club. “When it goes to hit the stands, its legs slow up a bit. That’s when our kind has the best chance of hitting.” The dwarf hefted his melee weapon to his shoulder, leaving no doubt what he’d meant by the words “our kind.”
“Thank you,” Eric said.
“No need. This works better if more of us charge it,” the dwarf told him.
Eric realized that all around the demon were adventurers with their weapons out, braced to charge, merely waiting for the right moment. Most of the parties he recognized were split, members forming triangular patterns around their massive target. Later on, Eric would realize that was so that if the demon attacked an area where one of them stood, the others would still have a chance at killing it. When he understood their brutal, selfless efficiency, he would be all the more impressed by these warriors.
They didn’t have long to wait until their opportunity came. The demon, reacting to some unknown impulse, pulled more of its body out of the hole and smashed into a section of the stands with its head. As it did, the waving legs slowed and the adventurers rushed forward. Eric was with them, trying hard not to think about the lives of the people in the stands. It seemed cruel to have waited for it to kill more of them, but there really hadn’t been any other way. He kept his eyes on the monster, not wishing to see the deaths of more innocent people. His ears, unfortunately, were not so easy to turn away.
“Aaaaaaah!”
Eric looked, unwillingly, as the sound of frightened children reached his ears, which is why he was watching when Thistle let out his own, gnomish scream. The three figures tumbled through the air, right toward the waiting jaws of the demon.
“Thistle!” Eric had no idea what he hoped to accomplish by yelling. It wouldn’t stop what was about to happen, it wouldn’t bring back his friend, and it wouldn’t make him feel any less useless as he watched the gnome die.
Still, Eric yelled just the same.
14.
Kicking children was, by and large, not an activity associated with paladins, at least, not with paladins of any god one could pray to in a respectable temple. So Thistle felt a touch awkward about the fact that his final action in this life would be sinking his small gnome feet into the torsos of the mayor’s children, and pushing with all his might. Before the job change, it likely wouldn’t have been enough, but his paladin strength gave him the extra boost to send both children hurtling in a new direction, one that would hopefully place them outside the ground demon’s range. This also had the effect of moving him closer to the demon’s open mouth. Such were the ramifications of mid-air readjustments.
As he tumbled through the air, Thistle pulled both of his daggers from their sheaths. It was a useless gesture. This monster would crush him in a single snap of its jaws, but he was determined to fulfill his duty to the end. Paladins always went down slashing; Thistle would not be the one to break that grand tradition.
In the span of seconds, he’d fallen into its mouth, a wide, red canyon filled with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth. The world grew dark as its jaw shut, sealing away the daylight. All that illuminated the space around Thistle was the set of daggers clutched desperately in his hands, which gave off a faint white glow. He wasn’t sure if this was magic Sierva had put on them, or a side effect of the blessing; he just knew he was thankful for it.
Thistle flew past the first few rows of teeth, the kick-generated spurt of momentum carrying his small body through at high speeds. When he finally landed, he was partway down the demon’s throat, just past its tongue. Immediately, the muscles of the throat constricted, coming together to force this delicious tidbit all the way down to the waiting stomach. Before it could fully surround him, Thistle dug both daggers into the soft flesh, plunging as hard and deep as he could manage.
“Hope you can’t swallow right for a week,” Thistle muttered, one last dash of spite against his killer before his inevitable death. With the damage done, he waited for the throat to crush him into pulp.
Instead, the entire arena got a very attention-grabbing surprise.
The demon’s scream made nearly everyone present clutch their ears in pain. It rang out across the tournament field, causing a section of the stands to shake and collapse, then continued onward where it startled some unsuspecting birds roosting a mile away. As horrible as the sound was, it might as well have been the starting flag at a joust, because it signaled just what all the adventurers had been waiting for: an opportunity.
They poured into its lair like a spilled potion, surrounding the demon as it churned and bucked, battling some unseen foe. Eric was with them, hoping against hope that if he were fast enough, somehow, there would still be time to save Thistle. Maybe if they opened up its stomach, he’d still be alive and could be healed. It was a silly, delusional hope; Eric understood that quite keenly. That didn’t stop it from fueling his focus as he slashed at the demon’s arms with his blade, taking them off cleanly with every strike.
Around him, others were having varied success. Those with more physical strength, or magically-enchanted weapons, were able to duplicate Eric’s feat of taking every limb they swung at. Others, unfortunately required three or four hacks before severing an arm from the demon’s body. Even with the beast’s attention elsewhere, this left them vulnerable for too long and often resulted in them getting stabbed, if not outright skewered. Still, as they continued their work, more limbs fell away, and fewer adventurers found themselves injured. Whatever was distracting this demon was doing an incredible job. All they could hope was that it would continue long enough for them to start on the body.