Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Milos of Crotonia poured rage of both man and beast into his fallen foe. Bone cudgels-crashed into the knight with the force of catapult stones, yet - to his mounting frustration - she would not die.

Her armour should have caved in!

Her body should have broken!

He could have sworn it had!

The cracking of bones reached his pointed ears, but would soon be followed by flashes of sweetness within the caustic stench of vitriol. She continued resisting his onslaught. The rage of the beast rose in his mind, threatening the reason of the man within. “Die!” he hissed from twelve maws. “Die! Why will you not die!?”

Bang! Bang! BANG!

The nimbus of vitriol ate his body with every blow, but the resilience of the curse countered it. His eyes narrowed, noting her movements were weakening. Perhaps he was dazing her. Perhaps he was overwhelming her cursed magic.

It did not matter.

So long as he could keep her pinned long enough for Lycundar’s children to finish the rebels, they could all fall upon her, tear free that cursed winged helmet and crush that wretched skull-

WHAM!

Such was his focus that he did not hear his rebelling pet’s rush.

The sabre-toothed tiger slammed into him, throwing him off the knight and sending him stumbling back. The hunting cat wrapped all four paws around the lycanthrope, raking deep trenches into his flesh. Its massive body blocked his vision, and a sharp pain shot through Milos from fangs piercing deep into his shoulder.

His lupine maw howled in agony, but his unnatural mouths howled in rage.

“Wretch! Traitorous wretch!” the twelve tongues hissed. “After all I have done for you!? Die with them!”

The man within cried out, wishing to re-capture his pet, but the wolf was long finished with patience. Growling, it focused on his skeleton, envisioning it flowing into a wicked shape.

Something swift.

Something sharp.

Scccchhhhnk!

The cat yowled in agony.

Spikes of bone - supernaturally sharp - erupted from Milos’ flesh, piercing the tiger’s fortified hide and digging deep into its body. The wolf within roared in triumph as the feline’s hot blood sprayed over his fur, even as the man cried out in consternation. The Sacred Alpha reached up.

The clubs of bone rippled.

Sscchhrp.

They split into vast, bone-sheathed maws - an odious cross of lupine and crocodilian shape - which opened to bite the cat in twain.

An enraged chitter sounded from beside him.

Schnk.

His body went cold.

And burned.

Both man and beast within panicked as silver slid deep into his side.

His howl shattered the air and he cast away the titanic hunting cat in fury. The poor beast landed in a bloody heap on the sand as Milos whirled on his tormentor. Blood poured from his wound; the beast within retreated from the bite of silver.

With a growl, he warped the flesh around the injury to seal it shut. The bleeding stymied, but his wrath did not. “You! Of course it would be you!”

His wolf’s eyes narrowed on the familiar rat-woman.

The bone maws on his arms split open and ground their fangs.

They would be tasting rat instead of cat.

‘This was a mistake,’ Wurhi scrambled back from the warping wolf-devil.

Milos stalked forward with fangs bared and human-like mouths whispering a susurrus of grudges. The unnatural jaws that were his arms - amalgamations of lupine maws and scorpion claws - chewed the air and shed long lines of spittle. His form rippled like a lake’s surface gripped in a storm. To his side, the sabre-toothed tiger groaned as his brown fur washed crimson. The Zabyallan winced. She had grown fond of the beast, yet there was little she could for him now.

Her own life needed saving.

She turned to dart around Milos’ left, but he swept after her with unbridled speed. She tried for the right, but he shadowed her still. She swallowed; the bastard was far swifter than either his beast-man or Berard.

Her mind raced while her heart roared in her ears.

Shit! Shit!

What could she do!? Sand in the eyes? No, he was too swift: he’d kill her while she sought a handful. Closing in? No, he was too swift: he’d kill her on the way in. Throwing her sword? No, that was the only thing that would hurt him!

‘Think, Wurhi! Think!’ her mind shrieked. ‘Wait! The Hawk! If he could-’

“Behind you!”

Whish!

A bronze spear sailed over her shoulder.

Thmp.

It bounced off the Sacred Alpha’s chest.

It clattered to the sand. Both the Rat and cult leader stared down as it rolled along the ground. “I tried, Rat!” the Hawk cried behind her.

His voice rapidly receded into the distance.

…what she would have given to kill him before this monster finished her off.

Grimacing, her eyes rose, and she caught a flicker to his back. Her heart leapt. A chance! If she could hold his attention, there was a chance! Baring her teeth in feigned ferocity, she darted forward, her sword flashing in a feint. She would fool him into thinking it was an attack, stop just short of his reach and-

Crnch.

A shock ran through her body. Fangs crunched deep into her sword arm. Blood poured from between his jaws. The bones in her arm fractured, protruding through skin and fur.

Then came the pain.

A shriek ripped from her core as he squeezed her ruined limb in his jaws and dragged her from the ground. Caught between two fires, she instinctively wrapped her rat body around her assailant, keeping her full weight from her arm lest it tear free. Her sword was pinned between his fangs.

‘Stay awake, Wurhi!’ she screamed internally. ‘Can’t pass out! You’ll die! You’ve come too far to die!’

Milos’ lips parted in a lupine grin at her cries, and his teeth shone in the light of the full moon. His flesh rippled and tendrils of sinew - like writhing sand-worms - burst from his flesh. Each of them ended in a pointed hook of bone. “I am going to flay you now. This is how it should be. Once again, I hold your life-”

“Face me and try holding this, villain.”

The cult leader spun toward the familiar voice-

SCCCCHHHNK!

-and took Cristabel’s bearing sword in his chest.

With a roar, the saint drove the blade through bone and viscera until it burst from his back. It split his heart in twain; divine vitriol flooded his chest cavity with a vengeance.

Hssssss!

Wurhi’s nose burned from the caustic stench. Milos’ body began to run like candlewax and he shrieked from every mouth. His unnatural jaws snapped open, freeing her arm and sending her tumbling to the earth. Her sword clattered from her limp hand.

BANG!

The knight’s shield struck the massive werewolf with such force that it threw him from his feet. She sprang on him, seizing an arm in her mighty grip.

She twisted.

Crnch!

His scream rocked the arena while she grasped his other arm.

Crnch!

He screamed again as it shattered, but his wounds had already begun to heal. She drove a fist into his snout, fracturing it. “Wurhi! I cannot keep him down!” she glanced to her comrade. “Bring your silver to finish him!”

The Zabyallan rose weakly to her feet. Her head was fog on the end of her neck. Her fur had washed red and her fractured arm was useless. Flinching, she tried to take her sword in her other hand, but still could not bend those fingers properly due to the beast-man’s handiwork.

Gingerly she bent low, grasped the blade between her teeth, and began to stumble toward the struggling titans. The saint had a hold of Milos’ throat, violently bashing his head into the earth while throttling him in her mighty grip. Vitriol poured over his flesh, but still he resisted.

While snapping at Cristabel’s hands, Milos spied Wurhi approaching with the silver sword. Fear gripped his eyes at the sight of the dangerous blade, and his body rippled desperately. Hundreds of tendrils burst from his flesh, cracking through the air and coiling about the knight’s armoured limbs and torso. Using this leverage, he hoisted her from the earth, and her gauntlets slipped from his renewing throat.

The Sacred Alpha staggered to his feet.

He made for a grim sight. Much of his flesh was gone, exposing bone, writhing muscle, and organs that swam through his body with the ease of fish. Only a few twitching lines of sinew and his thick spine connected his head to his torso.

As the knight savagely ripped away tendrils and others burned from the vitriol, more sprang up to take their place. Planting his feet, Milos began to whirl her above his head. The saint bellowed as she was spun like bolas, gathering terrible momentum with every pass.

“Cristabel!” the Sengezian cried, but he proved too inundated by cultists to aid her. Wurhi could only gape helplessly as the knight’s form blurred and rushed above the sand.

Crack!

Milos loosed her at full speed.

Cristabel arced across the arena, shooting between Lycundar’s writhing necks and into the dark of the cyclops’ cavern.

Crash!

Wurhi winced at the sickening crunch of metal and flesh colliding with stone.

“Enough…is…enough…” the werewolf growled.

He staggered toward her, wearing weariness like a cloak. His cursed body fought to heal its dreadful wounds; vitriol-soaked flesh sloughed off to reveal newborn muscle knitting together. With a grunt, he shifted the maws of his arms to their original hands and gripped the golden hilt of the bearing sword impaling his chest. With a scream that pierced the mountain, he dragged the vermillion blade from his body.

Cold and vengeful eyes fixed upon Wurhi. She yelped as he drew back for a throw.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Thnk!

The sword landed heavily, burying itself within the rock.

She turned and stumbled. Panic surged through the injured rat-woman; she willed her legs to run toward the other side of the arena. Breathing rapidly through her snout, she clamped her teeth down on the blade between them as blood streamed from the wounds in her fractured arm. She needed to reach the saint. If Cristabel could heal her injuries and face Milos with her, the two women could finish him while he was still weak.

He would be slow now.

His body was barely-

Whoosh!

Something immense shot at her from behind.

With a whimper, she cringed low as it sailed by.

Milos drove into the floor before her, kicking up a spray of sand. Like a nightmare come alive, he rose - panting - and slowly spread his arms to block her path.

Wurhi chittered at him. She had nearly made the other side of the arena - so close that Lycundar’s shadow loomed over her. Were she just a little faster and he a little slower…

But there was no helping it now. Both her hands were ruined. His body renewed by the breath. And he had her cornered.

She was done.

Beyond Lycundar’s visage, Cristabel’s golden light shone in the dark of the cyclops’ cavern, growing closer. Wurhi wheezed bitterly. The saint was as resilient as a cockroach, but she would never make it back to save her.

“I…commend you…” Milos panted. “You have shown…a great will to survive…you would have become a magnificent agent of both me…and He Who Consumes Himself…”

Wurhi snarled and backed away. No! She was not done! As long as she was not dead, she was not done!

The golden light drew closer. The shadow of Lycundar’s statue lengthened as the saint reached its base. Cristabel climbed out from behind it and took in the battlefield at a glance. Her eyes narrowed.

‘You won’t make it,’ Wurhi thought. ‘You can’t. Not before he kills me. If I don’t think of something, you had better chop him into tiny little-”

To her surprise, the saint withdrew around the statue.

Was she running?

Impossible.

“To think…a simple thief brought our pack to its knees,” the Sacred Alpha whispered, half-to himself. “Undone…by a mere rat in a pit. Remarkable. Know this, rat, you will live on in my thoughts. …though, I suppose that will be small comfort to you.”

She could not run anymore. Her body was spent.

He loomed above her now, with claws glinting.

“Out of…regard. I will make it quick. Farewell, Wurhi of Zabyalla.”

CRNCH!

Something shifted.

Something impossibly large.

Something never meant to shift.

“Aaaaaaaaaaargh!” Cristabel’s voice roared with titanic exertion.

Wurhi blinked. Behind Milos, shadows swayed around Lycundar’s snarling maws. The light around them was…was…

She gasped.

No, she was wrong.

The light was not shifting around the statue.

The statue was moving: tilting forward as incredible strength lifted its base from behind. Milos spun about and froze in horror. “N-no! Lycundar! Remove your vile hands from him, servant of the Weeping God! Stop! Do not further desecrate his image!”

In his shock, his full attention narrowed on the vision of his god’s effigy dangerously tilting forward. That was all Wurhi needed.

Schnk!

Her head darted forward, teeth gripping her blade, and clumsily, drove the sword into his ankle. With a violent twist of her neck, she tore his tendon asunder.

“Aaaaaaargh!” Milos wailed and fell to one knee, but the Zabyallan sprang upon him, slashing his other calf. Before she could do more, he gave her a backward swipe that knocked her away, sending her stumbling out of his reach.

Her lips pulled back from her bloody sword as if to smile.

Thmmmmmm. Crk. CRK!

Stone crumbled as Lycundar’s statue tilted further forward. Cries of alarm echoed through the arena.

Wurhi hobbled the hell away.

Howling with frustration, Milos tried to drag himself to his feet, but his hamstrung legs could not comply: their wounded flesh returning to that of mortal man. Panic shone in his eyes as he desperately willed his legs to create tendons while dragging his body forward. Stone sheared, finally giving way in a deafening roar. Lycundar’s fearsome heads rushed toward the arena floor; his shadow deepened over the cult leader.

Schrrrp!

Unnatural tendrils stretched across his wounds, forming new bonds. Control returned to his legs. The Sacred Alpha sprang up on all fours.

He tensed for a leap.

BOOOM! SPLATTER!

Milos of Crotonia was crushed beneath the weight of his own god’s image.

Lycundar’s heads shattered in the moonlight, seeming to cry out in loss.

CRK! CRK! CRASH!

The arena floor buckled inward and the earth roared as rock split asunder.

It imploded.

WHOOOOOOSH!

The river rushed forth, blasting apart stone as it fled its pressurized prison. Lycundar’s crumbling image - splattered with the twitching form of the Sacred Alpha - toppled into the rapids and disappeared within the river’s raging belly.

Thus the ancient image of He Who Consumes Himself was, indeed, consumed.

CRACK!

Fissures crawled through the arena. The mountain shook. Pebbles and stone dust rained from the ceiling, giving way to larger stones and boulders that plummeted to dash themselves on the crumbling floor below.

All within the cavern shrieked in panic.

“By all the gods and demons, the bloody mountain’s coming down!” Merrick cried.