“I daresay, that wasn’t so bad!” Boggy smiled, pleased with himself and looking back at the others.
Talarius was shaking his head. “Look!” He pointed to the dog’s body. Something really odd was happening at the base of the neck. The severed spine had split vertically, like strands of licorice pulling apart, Tom thought. Suddenly red muck was swarming up the split spinal cords from the bloody neck stump. The dog’s body scrambled, headless, to its feet and backed up towards its compatriots.
“What is going on?” Rupert asked in shock. The two spine halves were each now accumulating a bloody mass that seemed to wrap around the bone.
It took but seconds before Tom realized what was happening. “Shit! It’s growing new heads!” he shouted.
Talarius said, “A hydra hound!” The knight shook his head. “I was afraid of this. For every head we chop off, two more grow back. Quickly.” The hound now had two much smaller heads which were quickly growing. “As a side note, they also breathe fire, but I don’t think that should be a problem for any of us.”
“How do we fight this?” Tom asked the knight.
“Blunt trauma to the head. Pulp, but don’t sever or break the spine. You can also gut the body, rip off the legs and incapacitate it. Whatever you do, do not cut or break the spine. If you were to break one’s back, I’m betting we’d get two front halves.”
“This is not on!” Boggy said. “Making a fist with demon claws is a royal pain.”
“I want everyone to duck,” Tom ordered those in front him. Everyone crouched down as Tom extended his arm and unleashed a red-hot blast of fire at the hounds. The flames quickly engulfed the hounds; but to Tom’s surprise, rather than howling in pain, the dogs just growled louder and started advancing.
“Hydra hounds are usually immune to fire,” Talarius observed. “That typically, although not always, comes from the ability to breathe it.”
“Now you say,” Tom said letting his flames die down.
“Bard, trade places with me,” Talarius ordered Antefalken. The bard quickly complied.
The knight gestured at the hounds, making a beckoning motion. “Come, you worthless mongrels. Come taste the wrath of Tiernon!” The red lights blinked for a second, as if surprised by the knight’s words, and then the hounds charged. Three large, angry hounds; four ravening jaws of teeth with tongues dripping spittle in fury.
As they charged, Talarius began swinging his rod with brutal efficiency, smashing against the first dog, coming between the two heads to hit the head on his left and then back to hit the head on the right. It was like ringing a bell, twisting the hound one way and then the other.
The second hound bounded onto Boggy, who managed to get his fist up just in time to punch the dog in the throat, keeping its maw from closing on his head. As Boggy tilted back under the dog’s momentum, the demon brought his hoof up to kick the dog right between its rear legs. That caused a howl.
After a moment of hesitation, Rupert jabbed his claws into the dog’s side, trying to disembowel it as it straddled Boggy. Antefalken, who had scrambled back, swung his sword down on the dog’s rear leg, trying to sever it. Reggie tried making some not-very-effective punches at the dog.
The third dog dodged around the fallen Boggy and his hound to lunge at Rupert. Rupert screamed in pain from the dog’s bite. Furious at the dog, Tom extended his arm with its six-foot reach and grabbed the hound around the midsection, ripping it off Rupert and smashing it against the ceiling. He then squeezed as hard as he could, feeling the dog’s innards squirt out around his fingers. He tossed the remains down the hall.
As he looked down, Boggy and Antefalken had finished very successfully gutting their hound.
Talarius was standing over the first dog, its two heads smashed to pulp. The knight stared at the corpse, making sure no new heads were growing.
“Well, that was a spot of fun,” Boggy said, brushing the dog guts off his arms and shaking the blood off his hands.
“Guys,” Estrebrius said from between Tom’s hooves. He pointed down the hall. “There’s some commotion down there; I think there are more.”
“Tizzy?” Tom looked to the demon behind him. “Get us out of here, maybe through another portcullis?”
“Sure thing!” Tizzy grinned and nodded. He motioned with his head. “Come on!”
Tom stepped up against the wall. “I will take the rear for now. Talarius and Boggy, why don’t you go up with Tizzy?”
Tizzy took off at a much faster pace down the corridor, the others keeping pace. He took them right at the first branching, then left at the one following that. Tom took time to mark the passages, but he was not sure he wanted to backtrack at this point.
As they hurried down a new corridor, Tom suddenly picked up the sound of barking behind him. The dogs, or rather their packmates, were giving chase. “Tizzy? We’ve got company! We need that portcullis or something!”
“Next room up ahead, something even better!” the octopod shouted back.
Soon they were entering a very large room that was more cavern-like than the first rooms they had encountered today. It had stalactites and stalagmites and, most importantly, a very large chasm that was at least forty feet across, and deeper than Tom could see down. Talarius held his arms out and Tizzy got behind him and grabbed him. The two flew across the chasm, as did the rest.
There were two tunnels on this side of the chasm. The dogs’ howls and barks were clearly audible from the corridor down which they had come.
“Can they jump this?” Tom asked Talarius, who was now standing on his own again.
“They should not be able to, but I’ve only encountered them in Astlan. They’re on their home turf here so...”
“Great. Tizzy, which corridor?” Tom asked.
Tizzy was pointing back and forth at the two tunnels. Tom raised his eyebrows. If he did not know better, which he frankly did not, he would have sworn the demon was doing “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” Tom closed his eyes for a moment, praying to he had no idea whom that this was not the case.
Now Tom heard more barking and clamoring from the right-hand tunnel.
“I think the one on the left!” Tizzy said suddenly, just as a horde of hounds came bursting out of the right-hand tunnel.
“Battle stations!” Talarius cried.
There had to be a dozen hounds coming out of the mouth of the tunnel! Suddenly Talarius was a whirlwind of motion as his mace spun and smashed at dogs. Boggy roared and began punching dogs in the face, with Antefalken slashing at the dogs’ legs from behind. Reggie began flailing and pounding with his four fists. Estrebrius launched himself in the air and began looking for an opening to swoop down upon the creatures. A dog leaped on Tizzy and the two began wrestling.
Rupert began kicking at two dogs charging him. Tom grabbed the first one approaching him and picked it up with both hands. It was huge! He spun and threw it as hard as he could down the chasm. It howled and then the noise was squelched as it hit the far side of the cavern.
Tom yelled in pain as a hound pounced on his back and bit the base of his left wing. His tail whipped up and stabbed the hound in the belly, unleashing his tail’s signature electrical blast. The dog howled and fell back to the ground, spasming and shaking. Tom lifted his hoof and stomped down on the dog’s head as hard as he could, smashing it flat. He tried to release the pressure after crunching the skull; he did not want to break the spine.
“Rupert!” he yelled at the boy demon, who was busy punching and kicking his dog. The boy had numerous bite and scratch marks. “Electrocute him with your tail! That will incapacitate him, and then stomp his skull!” Rupert nodded even as Tom felt the jaws of another dog close on his arm.