Chapter 33

The malazaheen shrieked and charged, and I went to meet them.

They swayed drunkenly back and forth in their unpredictable, swooping attack pattern. The two of them crossed halfway in front of me to add to the confusion. They crossed and began to spread out again, obviously expecting one of them to be able to cut me off whichever way I jumped since surely I wasn't going to be dumb enough to run straight into their scythes.

Which is why I ran straight into their scythes.

I ran to meet them, holding back only a little so that when they crossed paths I had that little burst of speed ready to hit them before they could spread out again. I leaped forward and slammed into the nearest one.

My experience with them told me that all malazaheen were dangerous. These two had been chosen as the personal bodyguards of a field commander. Turns out, they didn't get that by collecting nifty-smelling sticks. I hit the first one before it thought I could but it still stabbed a foot of ripsaw scythe into my side and almost twisted out of the way of my attack. More than six hundred hit points vanished from my total in the twitch of a nose. I accepted the damage and pivoted along with the malazaheen's spin, got my teeth into its head and ripped it off, yanking its scythe out of my side in the process.

As breathtakingly painful as that had been, it was eclipsed by the multiple wells of agony that suddenly lanced through me as the surviving malazaheen jumped on me. It got its upper right scythe deep into my side, stabbing vertically between two ribs and just behind my shoulderblade. The upper left cut a line down over my left shoulder but I was turning too fast and the blade didn't dig in. The lower scythes stabbed through my thighs from one side to the other. It was heavy for a human and would have broken Marcus or Sergeant Carpenter solely with the impact. Unfortunately for the demon, I was no puny human, I was a mighty heckin' war dog. I shrugged off the impact long enough to trample across the one that I'd bitten. I had seen horror movies and the first rule was to be very sure that it was dead. Once I had beercanned its chest and head I spun sideways and rolled. Things happened very fast.

At the start of the roll, still in midair, I dumped eight points of Spirit into the demon. I shrank, my body tearing open and sealing up again as flesh was dragged through demonic blades and then reverted to my undamaged hyperidealized self-image.

We hit the ground, me on top. I was lighter now than a moment before but still hundreds of pounds of mighty wardog moving at the speed of a car on city streets. The malazaheen's unearthly bones crunched beneath me.

My feet touched the ground just as the monster shrieked. Fire burned across my back, scorching my freshly-reformed fur as the demon's shattered bones melted and its flesh burned away.

I came back to my feet and tapped Enhanced Rapid Recovery.

Skill 'Enhanced Rapid Recovery' has amplified and sped up your life processes! You recover the equivalent of 1250 HP! Your Essence is currently at 105/113. Max HP 1050, current HP 118.

932 HP recovered. Hit points at max. No current physical status effects. 3 points of Essence recovered. Hit point max has increased to 1080. 18 HP recovered.

Essence: 108/113

HP: 1068/1080

1250 Attunement gained.

I looked to the side and saw the melting pile of smoking ash that had been the malazaheen.

"Well, well, well," the hazdahem rumbled. "How very interesting. Spiritual poison? ...No. No, it was from the inside." He set the point of his sword on the crystal flagstones and twirled it around idly, spinning it like a top with his hand on the coconut-sized pommel knob to hold it upright.

"Why did you shrink, little soul?" he asked, his voice thoughtful. "You gave up something for that attack, didn't you? And then promptly recovered some it, but only some of it."

I growled and started forward, my head low and ruff bristled. The hazdahem didn't react, continuing to fiddle with his sword. The point was scraping a hole into the crystal it balanced on and the soft whining sound it made tore at my ears.

"How many more times can you do that, I wonder? If you did it too often, would you simply shrivel away?"

I moved closer, spiralling around so that he had to shift his feet and turn to keep facing me, giving me a chance to study how those backward-facing goat legs moved. He was thirty feet tall and as of right now I didn't even come up to his weird-looking knee. I was going to have to deal with that, but at least I had a new weapon to paw.

I had only transferred the Spirit to the malazaheen because I needed to shrink in order to escape from its claws and there was no other target available. I definitely had not expected the transfer to burn the creature up from the inside, and now I was thinking that I had plenty of Spirit left and the hazdahem might not like the feel of my Spirit any more than its minion had.

I prowled closer and closer, still growling and showing my fangs. I wasn't going to make the mistake of leaping at him again—one backhand had been enough, thank you. No, this was going to be a different fight. A fight where I brought him down and bled him out slowly, taking no risks in the process.

The problem bipeds had when fighting dogs was that they couldn't use their arms on us without kneeling (which cost them all their mobility) or bending down (which cost them most of their balance). Sure, they could kick at us, but their legs were usually clumsy in comparison to their arms and when they kicked they were standing on only one, making them easy to knock over. And the backs of their legs had all those lovely tendons and blood vessels and oh-so-necessary muscles. Once you took those out, they came crashing down and started bleeding to death.

Yes, I had put some thought into how to most effectively defend the adorable little baby who had stolen my heart from the moment she came home. There were two sides to being a good dog: Playmate and protector.

"I think I shall keep you alive, little soul. If I rip your legs off and cauterize the wounds, you'll probably survive. Then all I need to do is pull your teeth out and you'll be much more manageable. I can take you back to one of the labs and see if they can't figure out how to use that trick of yours...my Commander will be quite grateful to me for bringing him such a weapon. It will likely be worth a promotion."

I ignored him and prowled closer. I needed to be near enough to dart behind him before he could react. Just outside the length of his leg should do nicely.

He sighed and picked the sword up, swinging it over his shoulder and somehow adhering it to his back so that the hilt stuck up over his left shoulder and the point stuck out diagonally from behind his right hip.

While he was distracted I lunged, Mystic Acceleration granting me speed. I ducked behind him, ripped his ankle open with my fangs to take out the tendons, and darted out of reach before he could react.

That was the plan.

The reality was that he spun towards me and flicked his hoof up as I attacked, cracking it into my chest and punting me up into the air. His hand blurred across to grab me but I managed to twist enough that it turned into a slap instead.

I flew through the air and bounced off the ground fifty feet away. He was on me even before I finished rolling, grabbing me by the tail and swinging me up and over to smash into the ground. He overestimated my durability; my tail was yanked straight out of my back along with a huge chunk of flesh and multiple vertebrae. I flew free, not landing where he expected, but he still managed to lash out with one hoof, punting me across the square and crushing my ribs in the process. In midair I hit Enhanced Rapid Recovery.

Skill 'Enhanced Rapid Recovery' has amplified and sped up your life processes! You recover the equivalent of 1239 HP! Your Essence is currently at 108/113, HP at 17/1080. Active status effects: Paralyzed. Bleeding to death.

600 points applied to status effects. Status effects removed. 639 HP recovered.

Essence: 108/113

HP: 656/1080

MP: 770/1130

1239 Attunement gained.

I rolled to a stop and stood up, shaking off the impact and healing myself again.

Skill 'Enhanced Rapid Recovery' has amplified and sped up your life processes! You recover the equivalent of 1238 HP! Your Essence is currently at 108/113, HP at 656/1080, MP at 620/1130. No status effects active.

424 HP recovered. HP at max. 1 point of Essence recovered. HP max has increased to 1090. 10 HP recovered. 50/100 Essence recovered.

Essence: 109/113 (+50/100)

HP: 1090/1090

MP: 620/1130

1238 Attunement gained.

Good news: I was back to full health, my tail and spine were restored, and I was slightly larger and stronger than I'd been before he hit me. I still had plenty of mana to work with, seven more uses of Mystic Acceleration for today, and two more uses of Enhanced Rapid Recovery. Also, my opponent was standing over there laughing at me instead of attacking.

Bad news: This thing was insanely strong, a trained fighter, and faster than I was when it came to turning or striking. If he managed to get a grip on me again, I was done.

Okay, bipeds did have a better turning radius than quadrupeds, true. I should have thought about that.

I needed an edge, so I pulled up my character sheet. I'd been gaining a lot of Attunement, both from killing the monsters on the way here and the two elite malazaheen once I arrived, and also from the various Skills I'd been using. I was up to 20,154 which wasn't enough for that Rare node, but maybe...

I clicked on the Advanced node that I hadn't been able to unlock yesterday and confirmed when Mr. FloatyBox asked. The node flowered into view on my Skillweb; I metaphorically crossed my toes for luck and read the description as quickly as I could while keeping one eye on my enemy.

Surface-defined Gravitic Frame Bending Rank: Advanced Cost: 75 MP Duration: 10 x (Level) seconds Max Level: 10

So long as some part of your body is in contact with a Type I surface then gravity in your personal reference frame points in whatever direction you like and may be altered at will. This allows you to run on walls or ceilings and, with sufficient practice, enhance your speed or make incredible jumps by 'falling' away from or along the surface in question. Does not affect anything except your own body.

When the duration expires or you spend more than 10 seconds out of contact with a Type I surface, your gravitational reference frame will revert to the dominant surrounding field so if you're stupid enough to hurl yourself into space then you'll eventually fall back and cut it out! You know the oh sin it's still on.

It wasn't the 'make demons explode by looking at them' Skill that I'd been hoping for, but it was definitely better than nothing. I decided to buy it now and be disturbed about the crossed-out part later.

I confirmed the purchase and a shiver washed across my skin. Suddenly I could feel the crystal paving stones below my pads in a whole new way. There was a stickiness, and it had a direction, and I could mold that stickiness like Cassie molded Play-Doh.

A stab of grief and loneliness went through me at the memory of lying on the floor, my head on my paws as I watched her playing with squishy stuff while the heating vent that I had carefully positioned myself next to shot warm air across my stretched-out hind legs.

I pushed the image aside to focus on my current situation. Out of curiosity, I tapped on the Rare node again to see how much it cost now that I had already unlocked one thing today.

You do not have the 69,984 Attunement necessary to unlock this Rare Skill.

Ugh, these prices were killing me. Perhaps literally.

"I'm waiting, little soul," the demon called, gesturing 'come' with one hand. I growled. "Come now, don't you want to try again? My minions are enjoying the show."

I cocked my head in surprise and looked around at the empty square.

The hazdahem saw my confusion and tutted at me disapprovingly. "Really, little soul?" He raised one hand and gave a loud, "Hup!"

All around the square, thousands of demons stood up. They had been hiding on rooftops, in windows, or outright invisible, and I hadn't noticed them because I wasn't looking. That had been a mistake.

The vast majority were those little spawnlings that we had so casually destroyed on the way in. They didn't all look like the murder babies from earlier; some were rolling balls of arms with eyeballs in their hands, others were multi-headed snakes, and others were weirder yet. Still, the murder babies were the most common. Of the demons that were likely to be actual threats the majority were balor, but there were dozens of malazaheen and a sprinkling of other types including five of those snake demons that we'd fought in Lord Gliv's weapons factory. Mixed in among them were twenty or thirty of the demonic levies, human souls of unknown power drafted into the service of the Infernal.

There were a lot of them and the most important part was that they completely ringed the square and hemmed me in. The two main thoroughfares out had a half dozen malazaheen blocking the way and the six smaller roads ran between buildings with dozens of balor and other demons that could easily jump down if I tried to pass that way. The hazdahem had turned this public square into an arena, just like the Champion's Court I had fought a few days ago. The only difference was that this time I didn't have the option to surrender.

"I find it wise to occasionally remind these lesser ones of precisely who it is they serve," the hazdahem said, his voice irritatingly casual. "Demons respect power, you see. It's especially important with spawnlings—they need a firm hand right from the beginning or they may try to strike off on their own instead of obeying orders. You should not have allowed those levies to report your presence, little soul. They saw the destruction your group had caused and thus I allowed you in so that I could make this demonstration. I must say, so far I am underwhelmed. I shall have to find a better opponent if I wish to give them a proper show."

My jaw dropped open in doggy laughter.

The hazdahem completely missed the point of who and what I was and why I was here. I didn't come here to challenge him, or even to kill him. I didn't need to kill him, I simply needed to protect the city. Killing him would make it easier for the City Guard and others to deal with his troops. The other demons would be uncoordinated and probably fighting among themselves, making it easier to hunt them all down.

Of course, if he was going to be polite enough to gather them all in one place then I didn't need to do much hunting, now did I?

I turned around and raced for the nearest building. A few yards away I burned mana and leaped. The stickiness below my paws shifted, and suddenly the building was below me and I was falling towards it. I landed clumsily, my eyes and balance struggling to adapt to the change. I tried to get my feet under me but I was already sliding down what seemed like a steep slope towards the roof of the building. I changed the stickiness again, easing the angle of the slope to be only slightly downhill, and raced forward. Skillup messages flew by and I blinked them away even as I hurled myself over the cliff that was the edge of the roof.

I was slow to reorient and all four paws were in the air already, my body flying off into thin air, but I managed to whip my tail back and slap it against the edge of the roof/cliff long enough to change gravity so that the roof was once more 'down'. In the process I slammed into a startled balor, knocking it flat. Its body cushioned my fall quite nicely and I expressed my gratitude by biting its throat out as I ran forward.

Two months before getting Patched I had been sprawled in Dad's lap getting a relaxed ear-ruffling as he watched a show on the noisybox about someone named Louis. The building was bright white bricks, the walls defined by indented arched windows and the roof surrounded by regularly-spaced sprays of stone gilded in gold. What I mostly cared about was that there was good traction and thirty-ish balor up here and none of them had weapons. There was also a ten-foot gap separating this roof from the ones on either side.

I went low, taking the legs out from one of the balor and smashing it to the ground. I hit the next, bouncing it off my shoulder to send it sprawling. I pivoted, shifting the stickiness of the ground to help me make the turn. It was awkward and I stumbled, falling on the balor instead of stepping on it, but that was fine. I bit its thigh out as I rolled across it, taking some claw swipes to the neck in passing, but they didn't penetrate the thick floofiness of my ruff. Then I was on my feet again and attacking.

Biting slowed me down too much, so I focused on knocking the balors over, trampling them, and throwing them off the roof. It was eight stories so the fall might or might not kill them but that was okay. My gravity skill ran out after a few more seconds so I activated it again, causing more skillup messages to fly by.

The immensely deep voice of the hazdahem howled in anger from the ground off to my left and another balor charged from my front as I went to meet him and—

"Behind you!"

Marcus? What was he doing here?

I didn't take time to question, I leaped to the side and let gravity help me out of the path of the balor pouncing from behind while his ally distracted me from the front. If it had caught me it would have pulled me into a bear hug and pinned me for its friends to finish.

One of Estelle's arrows skewered the balor's head from ear to ear just as three darts of blue energy stitched through its side. The thing grunted and died.

A column of golden light smashed down on the nearest edge of the building to the east, incinerating a half dozen balors and a malazaheen that had been about to leap across. The hazdahem howled again, closer this time. A distant cry of "!" presaged a rain of arrows that metaphorically darkened the sky and left every demon on the roof to my west with at least one extra hole.

The roof I was on was suddenly empty of demons—no, wait, there was one. I jumped on its chest with all four feet, killing it instantly.

The roof I was on was suddenly empty of demons and I had a chance to look around. My friends were waving from the building opposite me, fifty feet to the north across the main thoroughfare of Gratlan's Boulevard. The buildings to my left and right on this block had more demons on them, but all of them were hunching down behind the battlements, peeking up over the edge to see where the source of the attacks had come from.

There was a crash and the sound of exploding stone from the south wall of my building, the side that faced the square. A moment later there was another crash, and then another. I hurried over to the edge and peered down.

The hazdahem was climbing the building. He was halfway up and as I watched he punched his fist into the wall to make a handhold, kicked a foothold into existence, and hoisted himself up another storey.

Hrmph. How rude.

I'd been holding it since before getting to Biomancy Square and this seemed like a good time. I backed up to the edge of the roof and hunched my butt over so I could poop on his head. Then I ran and leaped to the next roof, cackling madly at his howls of outrage.