The pickaxe pierced the tentacle.

It was enough to break its loose grip on the ledge and force it to slide down, split in two by the metal. The colossal writhing mass attached to it shot up another one, to a different section of the rim. The ex-prisoners rushed between the sparking fuses to strike them off; despite their efforts, the monstrosity was still slowly ascending the steep slope.

“Impede it as much as possible! Little of the fuse is left!”

Her voice rose above the sound of metal striking dirt and flesh. She was lying, of course – the fuses had only recently passed the halfway point. The bundles of barrels hung over the edges of the crater, perfectly cut flammable string running to each one.

They had wasted too much time cutting the rope bundles and fuses into perfect lengths, measured and engineered immaculately for maximum perfection. The sun had almost disappeared behind the mountains; she estimated a total of twenty minutes before her entire venture would end in death.

The tangle of flesh and tentacle towered over every other creature attempting to scale the walls. The flood of intricately carved dwarven stone which held the monsters captive for centuries had parted – at the bottom of this sinkhole, those sealed had finally seen light. They would do their utmost to ensure this is not squandered.

“A few more minutes until they will be stopped! You must hold on!”

The betentacled mass was the closest to scaling the edge, with only a third of the sheer path remaining. The other - more humanoid - creatures were not far behind.

The pickaxes and shovels threw arcs of dark red with every swing, sending the grisly droplets plummeting across the earth. A tentacle rose from the depths and crushed a man’s foot; he teetered, then a section of soil slid away beneath him. His body crumpled and broke underneath its own weight as tumbled across the dirt and rocks to the distant depths.

“It is time! Abandon the crater!”

In fact, it was past time. Despite their grace and speed, her soldiers made little distance before everything lurched and shuddered.

The surface of the pit was smothered by a cloud of dust in an instant. The grass beneath the group’s feet quaked. Holes tore open in the grass; several men fell through. The ground was deflating before their very feet – they were climbing a slope rapidly gaining steepness. Some slipped, others tripped – the flow of the earth did not discriminate in who it consumed.

It flowed as if a thick syrup, covering the crater in a tomb no less than sixty feet of soil. The tentacles had long left the ledges and vanished beneath the surface.

The dust settled. Twenty-eight fighters.

And less than ten minutes.

“This is the battle to earn your freedom - when the last of those who rise are dead, you will be safe to leave!”

She was lying, of course - they were far from safe, if not because of the demons then because of her.

They charged.

Hands, legs and other appendages burst through the settled dirt, but her makeshift troops were already rushing through. Her blade spat flesh and blood as it cleaved its whirlwinds of destruction at the vanguard.

A humanoid with legs and horns of a goat burst through the earth. Before he could dodge, her sword sent his head and arms flying off in gruesome arcs.

The other combatants were not as efficient. More creatures, some resembling humans and others not, wreaked havoc amongst their flanks. With an unparalleled ferocity, the pickaxes and shovels descended upon each one without fail, but always at some loss.

The earth trembled.

A long, flexible blade shot up from the ground and impaled one of her soldiers through the torso. The body was raised in the air, then flung beyond sight. More pierced the soil, not discriminating between demon or human; gore flew in all directions as the grisly tentacles of pure blade sawed their way through flesh.

The last of the sun disappeared behind the mountains. One minute.

She glimpsed an attack aimed at her and dodged... into the path of another one. Its incredible sharpness and speed left her arm hanging by a rogue tendon - she quickly severed the rest of it with her own sword. Another strike, aimed at her legs, went unnoticed by her.

As a result, it hit its mark.

The woman was flung to the ground in an instant; a flexible blade cut the air where her neck resided moments ago.

Twelve seconds.

She was covered in blood of different colours. Various body parts - human and non-human - lay scattered across the battlefield.

Without warning, a blade pierced her left lung from below. The barbs on the tentacle hooked into her insides and pulled her along with the blade.

Nine seconds.

From her view above, she could see the full depression in which the battle was taking place. Or, took place - in its blind fury, the creature had forced both sides of the conflict to become little more than visceral ribbons. The soil was saturated with multicoloured juices.

The monstrosity held her, suspended, for several seconds. She observed soil separating in a large patch - it had finished digging itself a path to freedom.

She could feel the strain of her weight on her organs hooked onto by the barbs. Little was left of her left lung or liver and the bones in the area were shattered; her heart and right lung were beginning to tear in two.

One second...

"Amelia Belomdomi... A peculiar name. Sentenced to lose all rights as a human as a result of her crimes, according to these papers. As a result, transported to the Nazgoth Labour Facility to serve her life as little more than an expendable tool at the hands of our Empire."

A well-dressed man read to nobody in particular from sheets of paper he held in his hands, lit by the morning sun. Despite the practicality and travel-readiness of his outfit, it was clear from its seams of golden thread he was no ordinary grunt. Another three soldiers, more modestly clothed, were tying several horses to a nearby pole; the beasts resisted the attempts and whinnied in protest.

"Although, I have no doubt most of this is forged. Why someone would contact the dwarven espionage teams to then be sent off to a place such as this is a puzzle that needs solving. Dima? What have you found for me?"

"T-They're dead, s-sir. A-all of them."

"Who is?"

"Every- everyone"

The man stroked his chin.

"This definitely does complicate things... How do you know everyone is dead?"

"L-lord Artemis..."

The soldier breathed deeply, closed his eyes, swallowed and continued.

"Lord Artemis, I knew the guards myself. It was them, it was definitely them. The prisoners... you need to see them for yourself."

The man put his hands on Dima's shoulder.

"Excellent work, soldier. Please, rest - I will continue the investigation myself, for I need you in your best shape for when you're needed."

"Twenty-seven heads. Put in a straight line, outside where the entrance used to be - someone wanted to do some counting. Six of these have been brutalised past anyone being able to rationally call them heads, but are still definitely heads. No faces matching our 'Amelia' here either."

Nobody heard his words, but nobody needed to. He waved some curious flies away - they had separated from the large cloud circling the grisly spectacle to observe the newly arrived stranger.

"The dwarven forger gave a good description of his contacts even before we brought out the hot irons... little reason to disbelieve him. She didn't escape until after the caretakers' deaths, that is certain - there were only four confirmed disappearances in that month, none female. Last one happened a week before all this, a certain Joakim - in short, unlikely any of them were her acquaintances. Impossible to trace to the dwarves."

He circled around, to the edge of the pit.

"Old entrance has vanished, replaced by a pit covered in a layer of topsoil. The bottom has either been used as a battlefield or a burial ground - difficult to tell with the flies."

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wetted it with a small bottle from another, then tied it over his face. His feet found the small ledge where the slope began, found their footing, then slid him down to the bottom.

The air was thick with flies and - despite the handkerchief - a thick, cloying aroma of death stuck inside his nostrils.

"Humans and animals... cut into pieces, perfectly. The weapon was exceedingly sharp and the hand holding it exceedingly skilled. Very strange, although I've seen stranger."

His boots squelched in the moist dirt; the earth was soaked in a rotting, viscous cocktail of gore, the smell of which most likely had already seeped permanently into his shoes.

"I... digress. This... what is...?"

He froze at the sight the parting cloud of flies greeted him with.

A towering lump of ...tentacles lay still, surrounded by pieces of its own self. Its appendages had mostly deflated with rot and were being stripped by scavengers. It was covered in a congealed purple fluid, most likely once its blood.

The man approached.

"Creature... not of this world, at least four times as tall as I am. Surface... and insides, it seems... coated by deep gashes, in a row of two to four - claw marks and bite marks. Died from a loss of blood... if this thing can even die from that..."

His legs weakened. He sat himself down, paying no heed to the ruin now coating the back of his pants.

"What kind of monster... what monster is this? A-and... what kind of... what was the other monster that it could even... do this to it?"

He said this to nobody in particular, this time hoping for an answer. The flies kept their secrets.