Slave Girl 2: Chapter 127 (Patreon)

“RAAAHHHH!!!”

There is a resounding clang as with a mighty swing Toke cleaves the minotaur’s left foot from its body halfway between knee and hoof. As the lower quarter of the leg clatters away in one continuous circular motion the frenzied barbarian leaves his feet to spin in the air and bring the ax down hard at the thing’s wrist, busting the copper arm at the narrowest part to leave its left fist hanging by a flap. On its next stride the monsters staggers on its amputated limb but through a lethal will and raw momentum it barges past Toke toward its target.

At the last second the great cloud of nymphs had coalesced closer to Rosa obscuring her from sight behind a veil of swirling lights and leaves. Off-kilter and stumbling the magical creature drives its horns as close to the center of the mass as it could manage. My heart is in my throat as the massive beast drives itself forward with deadly intent. The nymphs scatter like winnowed chafe on a hot, dry wind to reveal that the petite demon standing just three feet to the side of where she had been. Thank the gods! She’d sidestepped the bull’s horns, barely! Toke hadn’t stopped it but he had thrown it off just enough to save my Lady’s life. For the moment at least. Rosa, her eyes wide and dimming, stares in shock at the copper creature more than four times her size as it crashes to the ground beside her.

“Rotha!” From seemingly nowhere Collywaddle pops out from around Toke. With the natural nimbleness of her race the pudgy goblin rolls over the back of the temporarily prone monster and smoothly to her feet to dart forward and take Rosa’s hand. “Come, come, come, come!”

Rosa did not wish to break her concentration but with the brute rising she had no choice but to move. As I spring to my feet and close the distance in long strides I catch Rosa attempt to use her bracelets again, to no effect. With no other option all she could do is let Colly lead her back toward the platform in a frantic escape. Strangely, though aided by our goblin friend she was covering ground with the swift, sure-footed grace of a sighted woman. Just before I tear my gaze away from her I notice that while her eyes had gone dark those of the orange canine at her heel still glimmered.

“RAH!” Toke brings the ax down in a great overhand cleave into the living metal’s broad back to open up a crack straight down the spine. To my horror the crack seals up the moment the weapon is pulled away! Before our eyes the copper reforges itself like nothing had happened.

With the drifting motes of fairy light still dissipating the minotaur rises and turns to face us just as I come to stand at Toke’s shoulder. The blood that had been pulled away by Rosa was once more streaming back into its nostrils even faster than it had the first time. As the crimson disappeared through its nostrils its left leg below the knee begins to thin and elongate until it stood at its full height once more. If there was any question that the thing’s power was drawn directly from blood it could be doubted no longer. On its fresh peg leg it advances on Toke and I, though its attention was still focused on the retreated slave girl.

“Toke! The ring at its…?”

“RAAHHH!!!” His face a mask of bloodlust Toke leaps forward to engage the enemy, my words unheard.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Blows rain down as Toke throws himself into the fight with fearless, reckless abandon. A song rises from the northman. The tune was of an unfamiliar tongue and followed an unfamiliar pattern but its meaning could not be mistaken. The words were gruff, the pitch low, the rhythm like that of a blacksmith’s hammer. This was a song of men and battle and glory.

Clang! Clang!

The beast swings for Toke and misses thanks to the old warrior’s well honed instincts.

Clang!

I attack from the side, stabbing at nose while attempting to trap its near arm with my free hand. From the other side Lucas charges in with his shoulder behind his shield to ram into and push it back a step. Meanwhile Toke continued his wild onslaught, the head of his ax missing my head by mere inches more than once. His gravelly song rises in pitch and volume.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

“Rosa!” I call.

“She’s concentrating!” Cassie calls back. She must have been at the Lady’s side once more. “Keep it busy!”

“What do you think we’re doing!” Lucas cries. “GPHHH!”

With a mighty backhand the beast shatters Lucas’ shield and sends him hurtling into the dark night. It then swats away Toke’s next blow and with that same hand drives it into my chest to launch me back a few feet. I’d barely gotten my bearings when it grabs it’s broken left fist to twist and tear it away from the arm to hurl the hollow, though heavy, chunk of copper my way! I parry with my dagger, twisting at the same time, but still the fist makes contact with my should to send me spiraling to the earth.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Toke’s song grows even louder to fill the clearing with his baritone melody as blow after blow leaves gash after gash around his foe’s body. Woven among the foreign words of his song I hear a word, a name, more prominent than the rest. Odin! Odin! Odin! Every beat and every sentence the name is sung with ever rising fury. Just then a crackle of thunder shakes the sky and the recently calmed wind whips up again. Cold and crisp this new wind blows North.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

He was hitting, he was doing damage, but all of his unfocused rage would be for nothing if we did not strike at the source of this threat.

Getting to my feet I rub my should and call out. “Toke! The nose! The ring! That is its power! Strike the ring!”

Somehow through song, wind, and fury at least some of my words find their way through. Though he takes a wicked blow to the ribs to deliver it he brings the ax straight down onto the muzzle.

Clrraack!

Rushing back into the fray I call out. “Toke! The shaft has cracked!”

Too late. On the very next swing the metal beast blocks the incoming strike, shattering the shaft of the woodcutting ax just below its head. A heartbeat later the minotaur drives its jagged, hollow wrist into my mentor’s gut and up into his chest.

“GLAH!” Toke’s song cuts off as blood pours from his mouth, nose and the massive wound from the impaling arm. Just like Aristocles before him he slowly lifted high as his blood streaks down the monster’s thick arm.

“TOKE!!!” I wail. “ROSA!!!”

With the beast distracted I stab my pointed blade down through center of the ring and pull with all of my might. Toke’s final had cracked the copper face in three places and as I pull I feel it start to give.

“O…din!” Toke gurgles. His strength ebbing he continues to fight, fruitlessly flapping and punching at the metal arm that held him aloft. As the light in his eyes ebb with the dying wind he looks to me with unnerving calm, reaches out to brush my forehead with trembling fingers, and breaths his last whisper. “Quin. M-My leg…a…cyyyy.”

“Toke! Hold on!” I wail, though as his long body slumps I knew that he was lost. “NO!” Leaping up I plant both of my feet upon the monster’s broad chest. Holding the handle in both hands, the blade angled back toward me, I heave against the ring with every ounce of the strength that the gods had blessed me with. With frustrating slowness the metal was bending and straining…even as Toke’s blood streaked across down its surface, and probably on the inside of it as well, toward the cursed circle. “ROSAAAAHHH!”

“RRRRLLLRR!” A sharp snarl crackles through the night.

Just an inch before the blood reaches the nose it quivers and starts to retreat again. Though it could make no expression nor noise I sense something approaching panic course through the great animated statue. It throws Toke’s lifeless corpse to the ground and pulls its jagged arm back to plunge it into me, so that it could get to her.

“RRAAAHHHH!!!” My desperate scream has all the fury of the voice that sang so recently.

Every taut sinew and muscle in my body heaves as the ring gradually pulls the cracks apart. I almost had it!

And then, just as the ring was about to snap free from the bull’s septum, a numbness spreads up my arms as the metal ring begins to vibrate and glow with a forge’s heat. Instead of snapping away suddenly as it should have done…the magical ring fuses into the base of my blade! And as I pull it away from the minotaur’s fearsome face it does not split the copper as it should but stretches it like fresh dough.

“RRRMMMM!” I continue to pull and the copper continues to elongate, still clutched to the ring by some arcane force.

Before my eyes I watch as the blade of my father’s pugio begins to swirl to mix with the copper around the ring that was now one with the metal. It was as if cold steel and bronze were oil and water being stirred together, with a grim dose of Toke’s fresh blood to turn it red. The blade stretches out into a tapering point until the dagger was longer than a gladius or even a cavalry sword.

As Rosa drew the life blood away from the ring the monster slowed and slowed. As the torn metal of its left arm reaches my side it stops altogether.

Snap!

The metal at the nose severs to send the now inert statue toppling one way and me falling the other. I hit the ground hard and flat on my back, my weapon clattering at my side.

“Hahhh!”

I hear Rosa gasp followed by Cassie’s whispers. “You did it. You did it, Rosa. He is safe.”

“Ohhh.” Comes her weak moan in reply. She was drained, but alive.

In a state of shock I lay staring up into swaying boughs as the cool drizzle continues to fall. Around me comes the pained groans of my friends, the ones that made it.

Chapter 128