These Hallowed Bones - [Monster Evolution, Dark Fantasy, Heroic Undead]

The bull-demon's laughter died.

Silence pressed down on the feast hall. The lesser demons at the lower tables had stopped breathing. Even the torches seemed to burn quieter, their flames drawing back from what stood in their midst.

Duke Halcyon remained frozen in his throne, wings spread wide, dark blood pooling at his feet where his champion had fallen in pieces.

The serpent candidate's tongue flicked out once, twice, tasting the air. Her scales rippled with colors that spoke of poison and ancient hunger.

Mavren's talons clicked against her goblet. Her male champion, a black-winged harpy with scars crisscrossing his chest, shifted weight from foot to foot. Razor feathers rustled.

Baldred's pale fingers continued their work on the tubes feeding his flesh golem. The creature's single eye-slit wept preservative fluid as it watched.

The bull-demon cleared his throat. His champion, the stone-plated brute, cracked massive knuckles that sounded like boulders grinding together.

"Well," the bull-demon said, forcing his voice to carry confidence it no longer held. "That was entertaining. But Pan's skeleton has had its moment. Perhaps we should—"

"No."

Just one word.

All eyes turned to me.

I stood over the bisected corpse of Halcyon's champion, Aeternus still dripping dark blood onto ancient stone. The blue flames in my sockets burned brighter.

"Now, the rest of you."

Recognition spread like spilled wine across cloth. These demons understood what I offered.

Not challenge.

Execution.

The bull-demon's face twisted. "You dare—"

His champion moved first.

Pan shrieked threw himself down, trying to make himself invisible.

The stone-plated brute crossed the distance between us in three massive strides, each footfall cracking flagstones beneath his weight. His fist, large enough to crush a man's torso, swung toward my skull with all the momentum his bulk could muster.

I was faster, stronger.

My skeletal hand caught his wrist. Dragon bone fingers dug into gaps between stone plates, finding the softer flesh beneath. The brute's eyes widened as I stopped his charge cold, muscles straining against immovable resistance.

I twisted.

His wrist snapped with the sound of breaking timber. Stone plates scattered across the floor like shattered pottery. The brute's roar filled the hall as bone fragments jutted through torn flesh.

Movement behind me. The serpent's champion launched herself from her seat, scaled coils unfolding with lethal grace.

I released the brute and spun.

She struck mid-lunge, fangs extended. Each tooth was the length of a dagger, dripping venom that hissed where it struck stone. Her body was a blur of scales and muscle, twenty feet of predatory death and venomous killing intent. .

My hand closed around her throat.

Her momentum carried us both backward. Her coils wrapped around my torso, powerful muscles seeking to crush bone and joint. Scales scraped against my ribs with a sound like steel on steel. Her tail lashed, trying to entangle my legs.

"Fool," she rasped, her voice splitting into serpentine echoes. "My venom dissolves bone itself. You cannot—"

I squeezed.

Her words dissolved into wet choking. The coils around my ribcage tightened with desperate strength, but dragon-forged bone held firm. My free hand found her spine, fingers walking along vertebrae until they reached the junction between neck and body.

One sharp twist.

Cartilage popped. Bone separated. Her eyes went wide as signals from her brain stopped reaching her lower body.

The stone brute's shoulder slammed into my back.

The impact sent me sprawling. Dragon plates scraped against flagstones as I rolled, the serpent's paralyzed body falling away. I came up in a crouch, with Aeternus in my grip.

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The brute loomed over me, his good hand raised to crush my skull against the floor. Stone plates along his arm ground together, building momentum.

His fist hammered down.

I threw myself sideways. Flagstones exploded where my head had been, sending chips of stone scattering like shrapnel.

Above me, the black-winged harpy descended.

He'd been circling, waiting for the perfect moment. Now he dove with wings folded tight, talons extended like spears. His trajectory aimed for my exposed spine where dragon plates had shifted during the roll.

I pivoted, bending, moving, extending. I caught his ankle mid-dive.

His momentum became mine. I used his weight and speed, swinging him in a wide arc that ended with his body crashing into the nearest stone pillar.

The impact shook dust from the ceiling. The harpy's left wing bent backward at an angle, bone snapping with wet cracks. He screamed, a sound halfway between bird cry and human agony.

But he twisted in my grip, free talons raking across my wrist bones. Furrows appeared in the bone, deep enough to expose marrow.

The stone brute charged again, his shattered wrist forgotten. Rage drove him past pain. His good fist swung wide, trying to catch me while I held the harpy.

I released the harpy and ducked.

The brute's fist took the harpy in the chest instead. Ribs cracked like kindling. The harpy flew backward, wings flapping uselessly, and hit the floor in a tangle of broken feathers.

The serpent had dragged herself closer during the chaos. Her lower body refused to respond, spine severed, but her head still moved. Fangs still dripped venom that ate through stone where it pooled.

She lunged at my ankle.

Fangs struck bone. Venom hissed and bubbled, eating through the outer layer of calcium. The acid burned deep, seeking marrow, but dragon-forged structure held beneath the surface corrosion.

I looked down at her.

Her eyes held fury even as her body failed. Scales along her throat had blackened where my grip had crushed arteries. Blood seeped from her mouth, mixing with venom to create pools of smoking fluid.

She tried to speak. A curse, perhaps. A final threat.

Aeternus took her head clean off.

The blade passed through scales and flesh and bone without slowing. Her head rolled across flagstones, coming to rest at Duke Halcyon's feet. Her body convulsed once, coils thrashing in death spasm, then went still. rFom under the table, Pan watched the head spin to a stop. Three hands covering his face slowly lowered. He grinned.

The harpy struggled to rise behind me.

His broken wing dragged uselessly across blood-slicked stone. His chest had caved in where the brute's fist connected, ribs jutting through black feathers at wrong angles. Each breath came with wet, rattling sounds.

But he pushed himself up on his good arm. Warriors died standing.

The brute circled to my right, his shattered wrist held against his chest. His jaw hung at the wrong angle where my kick had connected earlier. Drool mixed with blood dripped from his slack mouth.

Two wounded opponents. Both dangerous despite their injuries.

The harpy moved first, using his good wing to propel himself forward in a desperate lunge. His remaining talons aimed for my throat, seeking the vertebrae that connected my skull to my spine.

I stepped back and caught his wrist as he passed.

His momentum carried him forward. I held on, letting physics do the work. His own speed and my grip created a fulcrum. His shoulder dislocated with a wet pop.

The harpy screamed again, that terrible bird-human hybrid sound.

I spun him around and drove his face into the stone brute's gut.

The brute had been charging. Now the harpy's beak, sharp as any blade, punched through stone plates to bury itself in corrupted flesh beneath. The brute's forward momentum drove the beak deeper, skewering him on his ally's face.

Both creatures stood locked together for a moment. The harpy, impaled through the brute's stomach. The brute, frozen in shock as blood poured from the wound.

I stepped back and raised Aeternus.

One horizontal slash took both their heads.

The blade passed through the harpy's neck first, then continued through the brute's throat just above where they'd been joined. Both heads fell, trailing black ichor. Their bodies collapsed in opposite directions, finally separated in death.

Mavren shrieked.

The female Harpy Queen launched herself from her seat at the high table. Her face twisted with rage and loss as she watched her champion's head roll across the floor. Black feathers erupted from her body as she transformed mid-leap, talons extending to twice their normal length.

She was fast. Faster than her champion had been.

Her first strike opened three parallel gashes across my ribcage. Her second took a chunk from my shoulder, spectral flesh tearing away in her grip. Her third aimed for my skull.

I caught her wrist.

She hissed, spittle flying from her beak. "He was mine!!"

Her free hand raked across my face, talons scraping against bone. One caught in my eye socket, trying to pry out the blue flame burning there.

I drove my knee into her stomach.

Air exploded from her lungs. She folded around the impact, wings flailing for balance. I released her wrist and grabbed her throat instead.

I lifted her off the ground and slammed her down onto the nearest table. Wood cracked. Plates and goblets scattered. She thrashed, talons raking across my arms, my chest, anywhere she could reach.

I pressed down harder, pinning her against the splintering wood.

Her beak snapped at my wrist, trying to sever bone. Her wings beat frantically, stirring dust and scattered feathers into small cyclones around us. Her eyes burned with hate.

"You are nothing," she spat. "Just bones. Just—"

The table collapsed beneath her.

We fell together into the wreckage. Her back struck broken wood, driving splinters deep into flesh and feather. She gasped, the impact forcing whatever breath remained from her lungs.

I stood, pulling her up by the throat.

Her struggles weakened. Talons still clawed at my arms, but without the strength to damage dragon-forged bone. Her wings drooped, no longer able to support their own weight.

Behind me, heavy footsteps approached.

Baldred's flesh golem had finally moved from its position. The creature's massive frame bulged and moved as it lumbered forward. Tubes fed dark fluid into its body, making it swell larger with each step.

I looked at Mavren, then at the approaching golem.

One hand held the Harpy Queen. The other held Aeternus.

I made my choice.

I snapped Mavren's neck. Her body went limp in my grip. Her eyes, still burning with rage a moment before, dulled, empty things.

I dropped her corpse and turned to face the golem.

The creature's featureless face split down the middle as it reached me. Raw meat and exposed teeth gleamed behind pale flesh. Multiple rows of mismatched fangs, harvested from different corpses, lined the opening that served as its mouth.

The flesh golem's hands closed around my shoulders, beginning to squeeze.

This fight was just beginning.