A line of Demonslayer foot soldiers were frozen, except for the odd one or two that ran to their very quick deaths.
The Duskwalker stood on the other side of the clearing. The moonlight coming off the grey clouds and the discarded torches that lay about was just enough to highlight its horrifying features to her.
Standing on all fours like an animal, black, oil-slick scales almost covered its entire body from neck to the tip of its long and tapered tail. She shuddered at the sharp, protruding spine bones that trailed all the way down that length – the shape of its vertebrae inhuman. More bones covered its body, almost all of them visible, including its hands, forearms, rib bones, and legs.
A small amount of fur ran down the back of its neck and shoulders, but the lizard spikes that jutted out from its body, down its back, legs, and arms, looked hard and frightful. One stray knock of a limb could see a human be severely injured on those spikes.
Even compared to Demons, she’d never seen anything more monstrous. Its raven skull and short, upward-jutting goat horns made it appear like a corvid devil set to feast on death.
Raindrops fell faster, splashing into blood puddles and creating little ominous ripples. Mangled, broken bodies with missing limbs lay discarded all across the area. There were at least a dozen of them, if not more. Many were headless, as though the monster had decided the quickest course of action was to decapitate.
Currently, it fought while hunkered over a corpse it was almost finished eating. Anytime a guildmember ran forward with either a spear or sword raised, they wouldn’t last more than a few breaths. With a swipe of black claws, or a downward smashing fist, it obliterated the attacking human.
Then the Duskwalker would go back to its meal.
She was about to throw up her entire stomach, not just the contents, when it parted its beak and simply swallowed the limbless torso it had already picked apart. It was quick to start consuming the next closest kill.
It started by tearing off what remained of its victim’s loose arm. Then the Duskwalker swallowed it whole with its bony face pointing upwards, letting gravity do most of the work.
It didn’t chew – she imagined that would be impossible with its beak – but it did use it to help crush up bones for easier swallowing. And it kept eating, like its stomach was a bottomless pit that was incapable of being full.
How many people has it already eaten? she thought, her hands trembling. Fuck.
It ignored the arrows sailing through the air and impaling its monstrous body all over. With the number already imbedded into its back, like it was an echidna of arrows, she imagined it was accustomed to the pain by now. It would roar and then continue to devour. It looked insatiable as it ate comrade after comrade.
Emerie’s face paled as she looked over the dead bodies, hoping none of them were Bryce. She darted her gaze to the line of foot soldiers who were too wary of rushing closer with the sea of bodies between them and it. Please be there. Please be safe.
There was a list of other people she hoped hadn’t found salvation within its stomach.
It had been nearly an hour since the first bell rang, and the carnage just this one monster had produced in that short amount of time was terrifying.
A stick breaking in the trees behind her had all the hairs on her body rising. Wren said it usually travels in a pair. Where was the winged one she’d spoken of? Surely this one Duskwalker hadn’t produced this much death on its own.
Gloved fingers snapped directly in Emerie’s face, and she flinched. Her frantic gaze darted to her team.
She noted all of them had irritated squinted eyes.
“Sorry,” she whispered, ducking down to be at their level. “What’s your orders?”
“You’re not going to fuck this up for us, are you?” Lily, the finger snapper, quietly bit at her. “I’m not interested in dying because Wren paired us with a coward.”
“No,” she said as she shook her head. “I was just shocked. I hadn’t expected to see so many dead yet. It’s barely been forty minutes since the fighting started.”
“Never seen a Duskwalker before?” Connor said behind his mask, his voice easy to pick out.
“Have you?” Sahira snapped back. “Look, I was freaked out too, but as long as we all keep our resolve, there’s no point in judging the newbie yet.”
Newbie? She was a Master rank Demonslayer!
“At least she didn’t piss her pants,” Daemon said, nodding his material-covered nose to the line of foot soldiers. “I’m betting half of them are aiding us with the stench of fear and piss right now.”
“This would be a good time to start,” Emerie chimed in, wanting to steer the conversation back to why they were here. “Wren said this one doesn’t travel alone. We may only have a small window to catch this one before its friend shows up.”
“She’s right.” Connor roamed his grey eyes over the trees behind her.
Lily’s hard, dagger-like stare softened at Emerie, likely in appreciation of the reminder and the confirmation she wasn’t planning on backing out.
“It has a tail,” Lily noted, and they all turned their attention to the Duskwalker eating a new person. “We can use that against it.”
“If one of us can get an enchanted rope around its beak, we might be able to rule its face out as a danger,” Daemon added in.
“That won’t work,” Emerie said. “It’ll be able to slide the rope off its beak, since it’s tapered. It will also still be able to peck at us.”
“We still have to shut it,” Lily argued.
“Yeah, but” – Emerie pointed to its skull – “if we can thread the rope around its beak and horns together, that will at least keep it closed. Then we just have to avoid any quick strikes from its skull, horns, and beak.”
“Obviously, we have to go for its legs too,” Lily added.
All five of them nodded.
“Okay. We’ve noted the areas we need to attack. From now on, it’s just whoever can get to that limb first.” Sahira pulled a dagger from her hip and uncoiled her whip. “Let’s get this over with. Give the signal.”
Connor lowered his mask just long enough to place his thumb and middle finger to his mouth. He let out a whistle.
For a few breaths, nothing happened as they watched and waited. They aren’t attacking, she thought with her lips flattening in worry.
After too long, Elders shoved foot soldiers forward, forcing them to attack. They skewered the cowards who wouldn’t with their swords. Some continued to refuse, and the Elders killed just enough people to frighten the mass of soldiers into charging.
The moment the first brave soldier came upon the creature, Emerie and her team were moving. She didn’t have time to think, only react – and she was thankful for the quiet of her thoughts amongst the chaos.
She sidestepped around soldiers and spears, occasionally ducking when a person was thrown through the air by either a strong arm or the long, thick lizard tail. She noted the vertebrae going down the flexible limb were white and protruding from its flesh.