“Orders, ma’am?”
Eva glanced to the thing at her side. Some sort of vampire-cat hybrid with the strengths of neither race. He sat on the tips of his toes with his knees spread and his hands touching the ground in front of him. At least he wasn’t licking his hands and brushing them over his bushy ears.
She rolled her eyes. Like the rest of her army, and the armies of Genoa and Arachne, the construct before her was just that; a construct. Built up by the theater-demon to serve as fodder for their little war. Eva had the distinct impression that she was being made the subject of a very poor joke–her army of mutant hybrids was grossly underpowered in comparison to the other two armies.
“We need to get out from between the two of them,” Eva said. “They can whittle down each other while we wait on the sidelines.”
“So, sound the order to retreat?”
“Strategic withdrawal.”
“Understood, ma’am.” After a sloppy salute, the vampire-cat scampered off to relay her orders.
It moved just in time for the wooden wall to splinter inwards.
Eva dove to the side as one of Arachne’s little monstrosities barreled into the building.
The thing was disgusting. It ran on four legs, though the front two were mostly used for stability. Two extra arms stuck out from the carapace on its back, tipped with sharp claws. Teeth and bone spikes seemed to have been spread around the creature haphazardly. It had more teeth than three Arachne smiles.
It turned to her with all those teeth bared.
Eva snarled. Igniting her own claws with thaumaturgical fire, she closed in immediately with a step.
Landing on its back with a grunt, she gripped both of its claw capped arms and wrenched. Two satisfying snaps preceded a brief yelp of pain.
Early on, Eva had learned that those arms were the main danger of the creatures. They could slash out and strike in the blink of an eye. Without their attacking arms, their teeth became their only real weapon.
Their teeth and their powerful legs.
The thing reared back in an attempt to dislodge its rider, knocking Eva into some of the undamaged wall.
One jagged sliver cut into her side, right near the wound left over from Sawyer’s dagger.
Eva cried out in pain. Her hands lost their grip on the creature’s arms.
Its next buck sent Eva rolling across the ground.
Pushing herself for a few extra rolls, Eva managed to scrape by without being landed on.
It still scraped her arm up with its foreclaws as it landed. Dank breath washed over Eva’s face as it let out a roar. She winced back as slimy spittle splattered over her.
Mid-roar, Eva reached up and thrust both hands into its mouth. She gripped its lower and upper jaw, searing its flesh. With a burst of strength, Eva pulled her hands apart.
The jaw snapped open, sending more spittle everywhere.
Eva withdrew her arms and plunged eight of her fingers into eight of its eyes. Only after wiggling her fingers around did the thing finally slump over.
Right on top of Eva.
With a grunt, she shoved the carcass off of her and pulled herself to her feet.
Another of the things was eating a few of her troops. Eva had half a mind to leave them to their fates. Thus far, they had been entirely worthless in any confrontation with Arachne’s bugs.
Unfortunately, Eva had already lost a sizable portion of her allotted force and was fairly certain that reinforcements were not going to show up.
Her hands already ignited, Eva formed the flames up into balls. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the balls slinging at the monstrosity.
The flames exploded against the side of the creature, doing exactly zero damage.
The poor thing that was the creature’s current target may have taken more damage from Eva’s flames than the creature itself.
But, the flames performed their duty of attracting the creature’s attention most admirably.
It whipped its head towards her. Droplets of slime were flung from its mouth with the motion.
Eva took a brief moment to wipe her own face off before the creature charged.
She readied herself, watching for the right moment to step onto its back.
The moment never came. Eva was forced to jump to one side.
The creature continued on, slamming into the wall and knocking another chunk of it down.
Eva was about to step onto its back when a slight motion at the corner of her eye caught her attention. Four of the little goblin-lizard things that she had already dismissed as completely worthless were rapidly slinking up to the momentarily stunned monstrosity.
She paused, watching to see what their tiny little minds had cooked up this time.
Two jumped on its back and started to use their surprisingly sharp daggers to hack off its claw-arms. One ran in and gave the creature an uppercut with his dagger while the final one gouged out its eyes.
Eva frowned as they continued to hack away at the monster. The last time she had attempted to send them into battle, they had sat around picking their noses while the enemy demolished them. Not literally, but close enough.
“So what,” Eva mumbled to herself, “they learn?”
“Oh yes,” said the cat-vampire that Eva had been using as a lieutenant–Eva hadn’t bothered to learn his name, if he even had one. She almost put her fist through his face at his sudden appearance, but managed to restrain herself. “We all learn. But we haven’t been able to use your blood magic that you used to dispatch the other mongrels.”
Of course they wouldn’t be able to. They had no bloodstones. Even if they had bloodstones, none of the constructs had usable blood. They didn’t count as real or living to haemomancy.
That was part of the reason Eva was no longer using her own dagger. She only had her own blood left, which wasn’t all that high performance. It had worked for the last few monsters she had seen, but she didn’t want to use enough to go faint in the head.
“You want me to lead from the front? To charge in and teach everyone as we go?”
The cat-vampire’s face turned downwards. “We are few in number,” he said, not at all accusatory. “But we are fast. It isn’t my place to make suggestions, but perhaps we might strike from behind, eliminate a few targets, and flee?”
Eva nodded. It might have been a wise idea to speak with them before, but no sense in dwelling on the past. “Very well. Continue with the strategic withdrawal. We need a better view of what is going on before we commit.”
The lieutenant nodded and brought his hand up to his eyebrow. “Yes ma’am.”
Eva followed her lieutenant out the back door of the small tavern. There was no point in sticking around while Arachne’s army was just on the other side.
It didn’t matter how many of the stupid bugs she killed. Eva knew for a fact that Genoa and her squad-mates had killed more than a few times the amount that Eva had dispatched. As far as she could tell, Arachne had endless resources.
Apart from her one run-in with a member of Genoa’s army, the retired mage-knight had been spending almost all of her efforts fighting Arachne’s bugs. Something which Eva was beyond grateful for.
That single encounter had taken out a quarter of Eva’s army before the mage had been ambushed from behind by Arachne’s forces.
Arachne herself had thus far kept out of sight. Her army was around every corner, but no sign of the spider-demon herself.
Part of Eva was hoping that she was trying to find a way out of the situation. Honestly, Eva doubted that was the case. This was exactly the kind of situation that Arachne would find fun.
A loud crash in the distance pulled Eva out of her thoughts. She needed to focus on the now and not the past.
The lieutenant led her and her few remaining soldiers through the mocked-up western town. They stayed in the backs of buildings, pressing themselves up against the shadows. Eva moved quietly as she kept an ear out for any sign of an enemy.