Acelina yanked David up to his feet, and the group pushed on, pace changing from steady to brisk walk, and dragging limbs raised to kill every remnant that got in their way. They were still tired, still drained, but they had to keep going. No need to say it, each screaming remnant was like a beacon telling demons, hellbeasts, and the rider to come their way.
The remnants climbed out of the not-graves, and they came by the dozens. Each tombstone was titanic, as if a beast bigger than any child of the Old Ones was buried beneath, but nothing large came out of the ground. Just remnants. Dozens. Hundreds. And every single one of them yelled and screamed before someone took them down. But even with nine demons slaughtering the damned as they sauntered toward the group, there was just too much noise. Worse, there were too many remnants, and they grew closer.
“Fuck!” David jumped up and away from a dozen hands that ripped up through the ground directly under him, only to half fall into a dozen more intact remnants that crept around another tombstone. He spun to face them and swung out the dagger he didn’t have. Fuck fuck.
All four Las jumped past David and tore into the remnants, splattering their bodies with their swords and axes. Laria threw David’s dagger down at his feet, got both hands around her axe’s hilt, and turned into a spinning disc of destruction. It would have been funny if not for the blood splattering everywhere as the mighty little creature cut through limbs and smashed bones. The remnants fell, cut down, until they climbed over each other, eyes locked onto anything that wasn’t another remnant. They clawed at each other, only to use each other as traction to get them closer to the demons, or to David.
A few of them spoke words, garbled and messy. Kill me. Die. Hungry. If it weren’t for the desperate look in their eyes, it wouldn’t have been so awful.
He scooped up the stupidly heavy dagger, and slashed out at the nearest remnant, only for Acelina to shove his shoulder.
“Do not stop.”
“But–”
Lasca ran past him, sword high, and almost chopped him in half as she brought it down on another remnant, half crawling out of the ground. Laara did the same, and as she ran by, a taste of her sin hit him. Violence, hunger, it flooded his brain, and was gone a second later as Laara threw herself further and onto another target.
The Las weren’t exactly careful about their movements. Latia straight-up bounced off David’s back at one point, talons almost cutting into him, and the other Las circled around him like fish before going for new prey. Okay, yeah, Acelina was right. Keep moving, before being in the middle of the frenzy got him killed.
He caught up with Dao and Jes, and the two stuck by his side, falling in line with far less chaos than the little ladies, and each using their weapons with more control. The Las ran rampant, defying their exhaustion and cutting down more of the damned crawling up out of the dirt, stepping into view from behind a tombstone, or walking into the fray from the fog. It was endless, more remnants coming from places he couldn’t even see, and even if they were slow and lumbering, that didn’t matter when you were surrounded by hundreds… thousands of them.
“This isn’t natural,” Vicus said between clenched teeth.
Caera mirrored his snarl as she cut down a remnant that popped up between her and the rest of the group.
“You’re telling me.” She and the vrat led the pack, but as they weaved around giant tombstones in the endless fog, she had to fall behind and follow Vicus. “We’re making too much noise.”
“You’re the one summoning all the free remnants.”
“I’m not.”
“Your unmarked is!”
Caera glanced back only long enough to meet David’s gaze with her one eye before she jumped ahead to get beside Vicus again.
“Then we kill every remnant that comes for him. Come on.” It was taking effort for Caera to not roar and yell at the vrat. The last thing they needed was more noise, but as time went on, the fight only grew louder.
A gush of air cut across David’s back, and he turned around in time to get his side splattered by blood. Acelina hissed down at the remnant corpse, giant axe in her hands coated in red and dripping with pieces of flesh. With another sharp hiss, she gestured him forward with a flap of a wing, and cut down another remnant. She was better at combat than he figured a cranky princess who lived in a magic castle her whole life should be.
A remnant came up directly in front of David, and with pure reflex, he stabbed the dagger down through their skull. Remnants were softer than humans, but not so soft he didn’t feel the distinct cracking of bone, and the squishy way brains split apart on the knife. Before the sensation could make him dry heave, another remnant climbed up from the same hole in the ground, and David killed them in the same way. And the next.
Barking sounds spun him around, and the demons did the same, Acelina’s long wings whipping about like two capes. Like large bullets with claws and fangs, hellhounds burst from the fog and charged straight for the first thing they saw: Acelina.
“Cannams!” the Las squeaked, and all four took to the tombstones and climbed, flapping their wings desperately.
The hellhounds were huge, as big as the biggest wolves on Earth, with dark red skin and black spikes on their back and tails. More black spikes circled around near their necks, like a mane, and a single black spike stuck up from their foreheads. They had mouths full of white fangs, long black claws, and black and red eyes that stared at David and the demons like ravenous animals.
At first there was only one, but within a second, a dozen more appeared, and not all came from the same direction. They’d surrounded the noise, hunted as a pack, and closed in like lions.
They roared, and David wished he could climb a tombstone as easily as the Las.
The closest one charged straight for Acelina, and she brought down her axe hard enough the ground shook and dirt exploded in all directions. But she missed, the hound dodging to the side at the last second, only to pounce against a tombstone, and launch off it into Acelina’s side.
The giant demoness went down, twisted and turned, but the hellhound stayed with her and drove her back into the ground. It was like a lion wrestling with an ox. She couldn’t turn easily with her wings in the way, and the cannam pinned her long enough to go for her throat.
Somewhere behind David, someone clicked. Dao’s clicks, high pitched, panicky, and coming his way. She’d be too late.
David threw himself at the huge creature, and drove his dagger down onto its skull with both hands, blade pointed down. It wasn’t very sharp, and he knew the hellhound’s skull would be harder to penetrate than a remnant’s. He poured his weight into the motion, falling to his knees beside the creature’s skull, and sank the black blade straight down onto its head.