Hero Scout 110 Chapter 38 - Grave Portals

"For the Three, we will not falter!" Jack roared as his Holy Sword 'Fearless' cut another Sand Devil down. The horned creatures with rough skin texture like the red dirt of the Crimsonwastes were hard to see, and were but one of several Demonic Tribes that called this Three forsaken waste home.

Behind him, the Nameless Legion unleashed the Three's own wrath upon the enemy, a mixture of crusader skills and long perfected cohesion crumbling the scatted Sand Devils to the wind.

When they were done the enemies bodies lay strewn across the dirt, and one by one were set ablaze with [Blessing - Fire] so that their strength would not be pa.s.sed onto yet another demon in turn.

"Press on, we're nearly there," Jack grunted, wading through a sudden pool of blood that had seeped up through the earth. Like the rest of this wounded land it was a reminder of what h.e.l.l the demons tried to spread across all of Alandria. The Blackened trees were strewn with organs that aloud the timber to breath and howl, while demonic birds growled, and lakes of crimson blood lay filled with unholy horrors of tentacle and tooth.

Too long they trudged through the nightmare, the holy element shield projected by the War Golem burning a path through the filth and holding off the Demon Tribesmen that crawled along the hillsides. Jack eyed them cautiously, atop their monsterous pets with too many arms and legs, with split heads the Tribesmen watched with dark wooden spears in hand or wand and flame like how Jack might hold a bow and arrow.

Yet unlike the starving Tribesmen from before, these would know of what had drawn the Templar. Raising a gore covered spear high, the lead Tribesmen turned and vanished into the rotting woods, along with his warriors.

"The Gore Hounds, it seems they like you," Dana giggled, and pulled at her cloth. "Strange thing about being a saint, I'd never had a.s.sumed that you could still overheat."

"Corrupt Saint," Jack Muttered as he cut down a series of bleeding vines, "You are not as you should be. Nothing is."

"Aye, little peon. You are quite correct," Dana said and peered about to find them ascending a hill. Sniffing, her head lulled back and forth. "We're here, I can smell the death magic," she whispered and pulled away from her cloth. Blinding light to reveal a holy woman bleeding darkness from the many cracks and fissures across her body.

Holding Fearless tightly, Jack gave the hand-signs. They would know of their arrival no doubt and would have summoned what evils they could. Already the Flower Knigth led the vanguard, her faith in him far exceeding any expectations. She could be free, she had her chance to run, and yet still she chose to risk her life for the Warden.

Emerging into a clearing, Jack spied a grey and red vortex above a far away alter. Dropping from the vortex can a pair of Crimson Behemoths, 12 feet tall beasts of red scale and black spikes with claws designed to burrow through castle' walls.

Below were real demons - red-skinned children with a single horn. The imps. Followed in lesser numbers by red-skinned humanoids that took any semblance of uniformity liberally with mismatching numbers of limbs, heads, tusks and arms. The Demon Sp.a.w.n.

Yet Jack could spy no summoner - there, in the sky, a brief flash of crimson light had outline the winged frame of a creature. It was too far away now, but Jack jostled Dana and pointed.

"Leave it to me," she said and flew up and away with burning wings that leaked a reteched aura of decay. Flittering up from the surrounding trees came winged demon sp.a.w.n, spears and tridents in hand or talon-like feet as they homed in the Corrupt Saint.

"Defend the War Golem, do not let them damage it until it has closed the portal!" Jack roared to his men, each knowing full well that their lives came second to stopping the threat. Unless the portal was closed permanently, not simply just cutting off it's power supply, then the demons here could slowly build up an army to attack the fortresses again, and again.

"CHARGE!" Jack roared, allowing the heat to fill his limbs with power. Behind him came the rush of Battle Prayers of the Nameless Legion and a rush of feet.

Bounding forward faster and faster, Jack easily outstripped them all to crash into the first wave of demon sp.a.w.n to attack in turn. Fearless cut through two devil hard bodies with each swing, his holy armour able to handle the blows of the demon sp.a.w.n without a dent. A flash of steel flew past him, the Flower Knight and her all-female companions crashing into the rightmost enemy flank.

Having led a b.l.o.o.d.y path to the Alter of demon bone, arranged with graves filled with corpses, Jack was thrown back by a crashing of a Crimson Bomemoth's roar. Recovering quickly Jack cast "[Goldenheart][Greater Speed]!" in quick succession, and released even greater amounts of internal power to slip around the Crimson Behemoth's siege claws and leave a burst of crimson in his wake.

The huge demon bellowed in pain as its side was ripped open, and again when Jack clambered over

its body to slash it along it's back. Sliding down the nape of the huge demon's neck, Jack tore a ma.s.sive hole through the demon's neck, before sliding around its face to slash all four of its eyes.

Coming to the aid of its mate, the other Crimson Behemoth slammed into the creature's side, and unleashed a tide of tentacles from its mouth to reach at Jack. Unleashing a [Holy Fireball] stored within his armour, the creature howled as the ball of holy flame exploded in its gullet and set tentacle and mouth aflame like crude oil.

Tha napalm-like affect of the Three's purifying flame caused the Crimson behemoth to scream incoherently and crash around - it's tail shattered the alter, while it's footing slipped and the whole beast slid into the collection of deep graves. Once the holy flame touched the demonic infused corpses down there, jets of holy flame erupted from the graves to turn everything within to ash and cinder.

Meanwhile jack finished off the remaining Crimson Behemoth with huge cleaving strikes, and the NameLess Legion butchered the remaining Demon Sp.a.w.n while the more intelligent Imps fled into the Crimsonwastes and far away from the slaughter. Just more demons to this cursed plain, Jack let the Flower Knight lead the charge to mow them down while Dana descended from the sky.

"What do you think this is?" Dana held up a red ribbon made into a loop with plenty left over to dangle below, "Was on the Demon, called it a 'tie'. The Demon claimed it was an 'employee' too and that I was 'trespa.s.sing'....what a strange thing to say."

"Strange indeed. Perhaps some of the 18 Evil Souls are working with them, it would explain the sudden rise of demonic portals," Jack muttered and strained his eyes across this b.l.o.o.d.y forest.

"We should get going, the report from the King said there are another two portals North of here. Just like the fortress from whence we came, the wards there attracted a small raiding party trying to slip by."

And from the descriptions, it was the same disc-like portal of the one he sought. Clenching his fist, Jack swore that power would be his, and then all this could finally be over.

"Gather what you can quickly, we move soon!" He roared the Nameless Legion and accompanying Red Robes hurrying to obey. Too slowly, for even with other Templar bands out in this frontier, they reduced the enemies numbers far too slowly.

A demonic invasion was coming, and humanity would rise to fight it.

Heroes would arise from the lowliest peasants to the greatest n.o.bles, pushed to action by the horrific slaughter. The mere thought made Jack's blood boil, dedicated to halting that eventuality. No matter the cost.