The other Horse Stealers wavered, despite the Rage which had carried them so far, but Bahzell heard Hurthang's booming voice quelling their panic. And at least he and Kaeritha had warned them it was coming. They knew a demon was champion's work—that there was no shame in leaving it to him and Kaeritha—and they concentrated on keeping the rest of the guards out of the fight.
Not that the sanctuary's denizens had any desire to force their way into that battle. Bahzell sensed them streaming aside, literally crawling over one another in their desperation to stay clear of the demon, but he paid them no heed, for they were utterly unimportant now. All that mattered was the demon.
He took a step to the side, eyes fixed on his opponent, and opened his mouth as he flicked a glance at the blue-lit figure beside him. But the words he'd meant to say stayed unspoken as he realized the warrior beside him wasn't Kaeritha.
It was Vaijon, and the young knight-probationer's face was pale as the raw, stinking power of the demon assaulted him. It was like a sword, an invisible blade that drove deep into the heart and mind of whoever faced it, and Bahzell knew it well. He had felt it before, on the night he swore himself to Toman?k's service, and he'd never meant for Vaijon to face its like. He'd planned to fight the creature with Kaeritha by his side, for Vaijon was too young for this, too untried. But even as he started to order the knight back, he knew it would be useless. Vaijon looked frightened and physically ill with the corruption beating at him, yet there was no retreat in his eyes.
Bahzell ripped his attention back to the demon, seeking some vulnerable spot—any vulnerable spot!—while it finished devouring its first victim. Well, that was one vulnerability. It was stupid enough to waste time dealing with tidbits one at a time instead of charging forward to crush and rend its opponents. Not that slothfulness looked like all that terrible a weakness. The thing truly was like some enormous, slime-streaked centipede, and its body was covered in hard, horn-like armor.
"The belly, Bahzell." Vaijon's almost conversational voice carried through the hideous cacophony of battle with unnatural clarity. "We've got to get at its belly."
"Belly, is it?" the Horse Stealer muttered. Vaijon might well be right, but just how did a man go about getting at a centipede's belly in a tunnel without being swallowed on his way past?
There didn't seem to be a good answer to that, and he was still looking for one when the thing became aware of him. Its first victim had disappeared down its maw, and its head swiveled, pointing at Bahzell. Mandibles clashed, clacking together like snapping tree trunks, and spittle drooled from its fangs. And then it heaved itself forward, with a deceptive speed which looked far slower than it truly was.
Its front end reared up, brushing the roof of the passage. The movement exposed its thorax, but only briefly, and then it lashed down like an earthquake.
Bahzell darted aside, grateful that he and his men had at least reached a wider spot which gave him room to dodge. The blunt head slammed the floor with an ear shattering clash, and stone shards flew as the mandibles drove into it, but Bahzell spun on his toes like a dancer, sword whining, and the demon lurched with a high-pitched, grunting squeal as he sheared away two of its legs. It flinched back, twisting with pain, but however much it might have hurt, the wound was minor, the damage only superficial. It had scores of legs, and it coiled around, trying to reach him once more.
The head darted at him again, and this time he had less room to dodge, for the bulk of the demon itself filled much of the tunnel. Legs clawed and writhed, reaching for him even as the head struck, and he heard Vaijon screaming Tomanāk's name as he hacked and slashed at the creature from the far side. But the demon ignored the young knight. It had been commanded to deal with any champions of Tomanāk first, and it flowed after Bahzell like some dark, unstoppable tide.
The Horse Stealer backed further, then grunted as his spine rammed into the wall. The head loomed above him once more, and this time there was no room at all to dodge.
"Tomanāk !" He bellowed the war cry and lunged forward desperately, his sword at full extension. The steel was edged in blue flame, and the demon shrieked as Bahzell drove home against the side of its head. Bony armor hissed like ice in a furnace as that dread blade struck, and Bahzell sank it to the hilt with one mighty thrust.
But his thrust was off-center, and it missed the brain, driving lengthwise down the armored, massively muscled barrel of the demon's body. The monster shrieked again as it whipped away from him... and his blade went with it. One of the virtues of that sword was that he would never drop it or lose his hold upon it in battle, yet that meant little here. The demon couldn't wrench it out of his hands, but neither could he draw it back out of the monster's body—not without better leverage than he had. And so the whipping head took him with it, clinging to his hilt. It flailed about, shaking him like a rat, and he had no choice but to release the weapon intentionally before the creature battered him to death against the passage walls without even realizing what it was doing.
He landed on his knees, directly in front of it once more, and he heard Brandark and Hurthang and Gharnal shouting his name in horror as the demon heaved up before him yet again. He was weaponless, but he didn't even reach for the dagger at his belt. It would have been useless against such a foe, but that wasn't why he left it alone.
"The belly, is it?" he bellowed up at the demon, and his lips drew back to bare his teeth in a snarl. "Come on, then, you bastard! Let's be having you!"
He remained on his knees, but he pounded his breastplate with his fists, mocking the creature, daring it to attack him.
"Come on!" he screamed again... and it did.
The head struck, mandibles gaping wide, and this time Bahzell didn't try to dodge. He reached out instead, his hands striking with the speed and power and deadly precision of the Rage. They closed on the saw-toothed mandibles like steel clamps, one on each side, and Bahzell threw all four hundred-odd pounds of his brawny, heavy-boned body to his right. His left leg straightened, thrusting at the floor while he pivoted on his right knee, giving still more power to his desperate heave, and the demon squealed in shock as he literally twisted the front of its huge body to one side.
"Now, Vaijon!" he bellowed, every muscle locked as he held it there.
It was impossible. No one could possibly have pinned that multi-ton carcass even for a second. But Bahzell Bahnakson did it, with the strength of his own Rage and the power of his god as it snapped and crackled within him. Not even he could hold it for more than an instant, but an instant was all he needed, for in that brief flicker of time, Vaijon of Almerhas struck like the very Sword of the War God. The full length of his blade drove through the demon's thinner, weaker ventral armor, and it shrieked like a soul in hell. For one more fraction of a second it froze, and then its head snapped up with a bone-breaking violence not even a god-touched Horse Stealer hradani could resist.
Bahzell and Vaijon flew away like discarded toys, bouncing in opposite directions, and the howling fury of the demon's agony hammered a dozen more warriors to their knees. It screamed again and again, battering its head back and forth, shattering the stone of the passage's walls and roof even as it splintered its own armor against them. Ichor splashed and steamed, and Bahzell shook his head groggily and heaved himself back to his knees as the monster's own death struggle completed what Vaijon had begun.
It took over five minutes for the thing to die, and Bahzell left it to it and crawled over to Vaijon. The young knight lay unconscious, and unless Bahzell was badly mistaken, his right arm was broken again—this time in at least three places. But he was alive, and Bahzell gathered his head into his lap and leaned back against the tunnel wall, feeling every aching, battered muscle of his own body complain, to watch the demon sag slowly down in death. Even then unnatural vitality sent quivers and twitches through its enormous body, but they were only the last flickers of a life which was already fled.